Neeraj Chopra confirms participation at Lausanne Diamond League
New Delhi (PTI): India's double Olympic medallist javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra on Saturday confirmed his participation at the upcoming Diamond League meet in Lausanne on August 22.
Nursing a long-standing groin injury, Chopra claimed a silver medal in the recently-concluded Paris Olympics, having won a historic gold in the Tokyo edition of the Games three years ago.
"... I have finally decided to participate in the Lausanne Diamond League, which begins August 22," Chopra said during a virtual interaction.
After a busy couple of days post the Olympic final on August 8, Chopra started training in Switzerland and is determined to finish the season on a high despite being restricted by the injury.
Following the season-ending Diamond League in Brussels from September 13-14, Chopra will consult the doctors on his groin injury with surgery being the most likely option.
"The final treatment will be after the season ends. There is just one month left. I will try to take care of it as much as possible and consult the doctors later.
"I was thinking of just the Zurich Diamond League and the final. But thankfully, the injury is fine.
"It usually gets worse after competition but this time Ishan (physio Marwaha) bhai treated me in Paris. I would like to thank him. He has been with me since 2017 and has helped me through injuries and surgeries," Chopra said.
The 26-year-old has been managing the injury since winning the gold in the World Championships last year.
Chopra needs to finish in the top-six of the Diamond League Meetings series to qualify for the season finale in Brussels.
"I came to Switzerland for training ahead of the Diamond League. Luckily, I did not aggravate my injury as I took extra care of that. I thought of continuing my season like most other athletes. There is one month to go until the season ends. I will go to the doctors in my free time," he said.
A back-to-back medal at the Summer Games was a monumental feat for an Indian athlete but his throw was way short of Arshad Nadeem's sensational 92.97m that comfortably secured a historic gold for the Pakistani.
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Sambhal violence orchestrated by BJP, govt to divert attention from poll rigging: Akhilesh Yadav
Lucknow (PTI): Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Sunday alleged the violence in Uttar Pradesh's Sambhal district over the survey of a mosque was "orchestrated" by the BJP, the government and the administration "to divert attention from electoral malpractice".
Police used tear gas and "minor force" in the face of stone pelting by locals in Sambhal on Sunday as tension escalated during a second survey of the Mughal-era mosque, claimed to be originally the site of an ancient Hindu temple.
Ten people have been detained and a probe was launched into the violence, an official said.
Tension has been brewing in Sambhal over the past few days after the Jama Masjid was surveyed last Tuesday on the orders of a local court following a petition that claimed that a Harihar temple stood at the site.
A day after the Uttar Pradesh bypoll results were declared and the Samajwadi Party managed to win just two seats while the BJP and its ally RLD bagged the other seven, Yadav levelled serious allegations against the police and administration.
"A serious incident occurred in Sambhal. A survey team was deliberately sent in the morning to disrupt discussions about the elections. The intention was to create chaos so that no debate on election issues could happen," the Samajwadi Party chief claimed.
Citing reports, he said several people were injured in the violence in Sambhal and asked when a survey of the mosque was already done, why was a new survey conducted again and "that too in the morning and without preparation?"
"I don't want to go into the legal or procedural aspects, but the other side was not even heard. This was intentionally done to provoke emotions and avoid discussions on election rigging," Yadav said.
"What happened in Sambhal was orchestrated by the BJP, the government and the administration to divert attention from electoral malpractices," the former UP chief minister alleged.
Asserting that in democracy, true victory comes from the people, not the system, he said, "The new democracy created by the BJP ensures that people cannot vote while the system dominates."
He added that whenever an impartial investigation takes place, and the truth comes out through booth recordings and CCTV footage, it will be evident that "voters did not cast their votes and someone else became the voter inside the booth".
Yadav claimed that on the polling day, the police and the administration removed the Samajwadi Party's almost all booth agents and many supporters who wanted to vote.
"If voters were prevented from voting, then who cast the votes? If Samajwadi Party votes didn't reach those booths and our candidate didn't get support, then who voted there? This is a serious issue," he said.
"Additionally, there were two types of slips, -- one with a red mark and another regular slip. We raised this issue on the voting day itself, stating that the administration had created such arrangements, leading to discrimination," Yadav alleged.
The Samajwadi Party's candidate for the Kundarki assembly bypoll Haji Rizwan too has alleged that his supporters were prevented from voting.
The BJP's Ramveer Singh won the bypoll in the Kundarki seat by a margin of over 1.45 lakh votes.
