At Tokyo Paralympics, Chopra's ex-roommate Gurjar, a medal hope

Having put the Rio fiasco behind him, the reigning World champion is looking for redemption

What’s the worst thing that has happened to you because of a delay — when you were informed incorrectly about the time or were just plain late? In Sundar Gurjar’s case, it cost him the finals at the Rio Paralympics.

September 16, 2016. It was the finals of the F46 javelin throw event at the Estádio Nilton Santos. And Gurjar (pictured) was making his debut, a 20-year-old who had lost part of his left arm in a construction accident just a year ago. He was one of the favourites to challenge for gold. But when the stadium announcer called the names, Gurjar was not there. When he did get there, 52 seconds later, he was disqualified.

“I was shattered,” he says, his voice betraying the calmness he has been projecting. “I felt like it was the end of the world. It was everything I’d ever wanted, dreamt of, trained for… and it was gone. Because I was late.” Standing next to him, the man who has coached him through everything, Mahaveer Singh Saini, doesn’t hold back. “He contemplated suicide.”

For many months after Rio, Gurjar disappeared from view. He went into hiding, not home but not training either. “I was just struggling to get up in the morning, eat my meals, and just try and get through the day,” he says. While he went through his private purgatory, the Paralympic Committee of India (PCI) conducted its own investigation into the faux pas, without any conclusive results. The error has been attributed to a variety of reasons: That Gurjar couldn’t understand the announcer’s accent. That he’d been left behind at the training venue. That it was all a conspiracy to undermine his challenge (but by whom, no one really says). That it was an official’s mistake.

Gurjar finally pulled himself together when “Coach sa’ab came home, spoke to me and told me the only way to correct it was to remember it and use it in my future”. And that’s precisely what he did.

A year later, at the World Para Athletics Championships in London, Gurjar won gold with a throw of 60.36m — below his personal best (68.42m, a national record he created at the Indian national championships in 2016), but enough. Earlier the same year, at the World Grand Prix, he won three golds: in discus, shot put and the javelin. “I wish I could say it was redemption, but I’d be lying,” he laughs. Redemption is Tokyo. And Gurjar, who is over six feet tall, has wrestling pedigree and is physically imposing in a way that the brain cannot comprehend, has set his sights on it.

We live in Javelindia now. While Neeraj Chopra’s phenomenal success can only be challenged by his stamina to attend mundane public events, the truth is that in javelin at the Paralym­pics, India has always been the coun­try to beat. This is, of course, mostly due to Devendra Jhajharia  — the wor­ld record-holding, two-time Para­lym­pic gold medallist (2004, 2016), who has never been beaten at the Games. Gurjar is the upstart, he is the future, but he is also the reigning World champion, a title no one takes lightly.

“There is so much inspiration to draw from in the sport right now,” Gurjar says. “Devendra bhai is obviously an inspiration for any Para athlete, so ahead of his time and a legend already… aur ab toh Neeraj bhi hai (and now there is also Neeraj).”

Before his life-changing accident, Gurjar was Chopra’s roommate at the Junior National Championships and remembers a shy boy who always wanted more. “His gold medal is inspiring. It is also great for us athletes who can now aspire and ask for more,” he says.

Saini and Gurjar both say they have been inundated with constant phone calls from budding athletes and parents asking when training will begin, and how and where they can learn the sport. They have received several videos from aspirants hoping they have talent. “It is all the rage now,” the coach laughs.

Which begs the question: why hasn’t this spotlight fallen on the men and women who have won these lau­rels before for India at a similar stage? The answer is two-part and fairly simple. First, it is the latent hyp­o­crisy of the general populace who admire and gawk over physical per­fection, played out at its peak during the Olympics. We don’t love the sport; we love the spectacle. Para athletes get the empathy, the applause, but never absolute praise and admiration.

The second is more administrative. The PCI hasn’t always been run smoothly. Renowned para athletics coach Satyanarayana says it best without saying much at all: “Earlier there were problems within the federation. Lots of states didn’t support… there was a general lack of accountability. But now things have changed. We are professional now in a way we weren’t before.” At the forefront of the change is Deepa Malik, the elected head of the federation, a Paralympic medallist and shotput great herself.

Gurjar doesn’t ponder these larger machinations. He is focused on an August that will grant him peace — a giant armed with a javelin and eyeing redemption, the plot point of anime movies galore. And while, unexpectedly, the story’s conclusion has been delayed by a year, it has only bolstered Gurjar’s belief.

“I have made many sacrifices, overcome many struggles, gone through a lot of hell, but last year has been the worst,” he says. At the start of the lockdowns, Gurjar went from his home straight to the Sawai Man Singh stadium in Jaipur, and locked himself in. Away from his family, without a coach (Saini was allowed much later), his wife and two young sons, he decided to lock himself into a training routine.

“Kya bataoon, bohot akelapan hua hai, but hausla bhi badha hai (There was a lot of loneliness, but now there is huge determination),” he says. He shifted to Sports Authority of India (SAI), Bengaluru, in the brief pause of the lockdowns and stayed there before flying off to Tokyo two days ago with the Indian contingent, which includes five javelin throwers. At SAI, he’d talk to his family every day over the phone. Earlier, his kids questioned his absence; “they understand now,” he says. “Everyone around me knows how much I want this. Ek galti se I lost my chance. Now it's in my control again.” The adage fits: Better late than never.