On X (formerly Twitter), shuttler Saina Nehwal has been compared to Kangana Ranaut of Indian sports following her remarks about the javelin throw. Nehwal, who has represented India in three Olympic Games and secured a bronze medal at the London 2012 Olympics, recently revealed that she was unaware of the javelin as a sport until Neeraj Chopra won gold at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
“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 told journalist Shubhankar Mishra during an interview.
She further explained, “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.”
Nehwal also admitted that she learned about former badminton player Prakash Padukone, Deepika Padukone’s father, only after she began playing badminton herself.
“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.
The video of her comments quickly went viral, with many users expressing their astonishment at Nehwal’s lack of knowledge about javelin. One user wrote, “I didn’t know that Javelin is an Olympic Sport until Niraj Chopra won a medal. – Saina Nehwal. Entire India only knew Saina Nehwal because her name sounded similar to tennis sensation Sania Mirza.”
Watch the full video here:
Another added, “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?” remarked another X user.
A fourth simply commented, “Unbelievable.”
Nehwal, a former world number one in badminton and a recipient of the Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan awards, joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2020 ahead of the Delhi elections.