Saina Nehwal recently admitted that she was unaware of the javelin as a sport until Neeraj Chopra won gold medal at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. In response to her comment, many people on X (formerly Twitter) started dubbing her as the “Kangana Ranaut of Indian Sports". Nehwal, who has competed for India in three Olympic Games and won bronze at the London 2012, has now responded to the trollers. She “thanked" them for the “compliment", adding that “Kangana is beautiful".
“Thanks for the compliment. Kangana is beautiful, but I had to be perfect in my sport and I proudly achieved world number 1 and Olympic medal in badminton for my country," wrote Nehwal on X. She added, “Again I will say this ghar pe baith ke comment karna easy hai and sports khelna difficult [I’ll say it again, it’s easy to comment from home, but playing sports is difficult]."
The ace shuttler further appreciated Neeraj Chopra won won two Olympic medals in javelin: “Neeraj is our super star and he made the sport so popular in India."
What has Saina Nehwal said about javelin?
In an interview with journalist Shubhankar Mishra, Nehwal stated that she was unaware of javelin as an Olympic sport. “When Neeraj won, that is when I got to know that athletics has got this game, too. You’ll gain knowledge only when you see it, right? If you don’t see, how will you know? I did not know about javelin throw. Frankly, I didn’t know," Nehwal had said.
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She expressed, “When Neeraj Chopra started doing it, he became an Olympian. That’s when I thought to myself if such a game exists because athletics has got so many sports. I got to know [about javelin] when the results came," adding “I am sure people didn’t know about badminton. I did not know who Prakash sir is."
The 34-year-old athlete further admitted that she got to know about former badminton player Prakash Padukone, father of actor Deepika Padukone, after she started playing badminton.
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“It’s not that you don’t want to know, but you’re so busy in your own field, how much time do you get deep into something else. If not, you’ll have to Google everything non-stop. If you’re perfect in your own field, that’s more than enough," she said.
Watch the entire video here:
The video quickly went viral on social media, with many expressing shock at Nehwal’s lack of knowledge about the javelin. An individual said, “Very surprising that a sportsperson of Saina Nehwal’s calibre should feign ignorance about javelin event!"
“Saina Nehwal actually said she didn’t know there was a sport called javelin in India. Like seriously she said that?" expressed another X user.
A third simply wrote, “Unbelievable."
Nehwal, former world number one badminton player, is a recipient of the Padma Shri and the Padma Bhushan. She joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2020 ahead of Delhi polls.
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