chandigarh as neeraj chopra threw the javelin to a distance of 8806 metres some 7500 kilometres away from jakarta down a dusty lane in panipats khandra village there were scenes of celebrations with people distributing sweets the villagers were raising a toast for neeraj who hails from khandraits a village that falls in madlauda tehsil the village has a solitary primary health centre and 1500 eligible voters most of the residents are farmers neerajs father satish kumar too is one and owns one and a half acres of land neeraj has two sisters and was raised in a joint family of 17 membersafter the third round itself we were confident that neeraj will win gold for the country neerajs uncle bhim singh told toiin the last two years he has been coming out on top in every competition so this asiad gold doesnt come as a surprise for us he addedsuch was neerajs dominance that the top four throws in the event belonged to him the silver medallist chinas liu qizhen was a distant second with a best throw of 8222 metres with the asiad gold the 20yearold emulated the iconic milkha singh to become just the second athlete in the history of indian sports to win gold in the same year at the commonwealth games and asian games the legendary middledistance runner had done the same in 1958neeraj did his schooling from the indian public school in madlauda and also studied for a year at dav college sector 10 in chandigarh he is presently employed with the indian army as a naib subedarwe have a joint family and along with neeraj there are eight children it was difficult to raise eight children we have a little bit of farm land for the last fourfive years the yield hasnt been good the weather gods havent been kind to us either but i and my brother neerajs other uncle surender kumar made sure neerajs training wasnt hampered said neerajs father satish kumarduring his early teens regular intake of ghee makkhan malai and other milk products had quite a telling effect on neeraj at 13 he weighed more than 80 kilos and was bordering on obesityalarmed by this his uncle surender took him to the panipat sports stadium gymnasium in 2011 and instructed the trainers there to get neeraj back into shapefrankly speaking i was quite fat i needed to improve my stamina and fitness my uncle surender kumar sent me to panipat a senior named jaiveer helped me develop my skills initially later a local coach coaxed me to get into athletics he had said that i could get leaner if i take up athletics to shed some weight was my prime motivation and thats how athletics happened to me neeraj recollectedgradually he started excelling in several track and field events he brought home medals from local tournaments in long jump 100m 200m javelin throw and discus throw but it was javelin throw which came naturally to himi wanted