Eldhose Paul upbeat after CWG 2022 heroics: 'Neeraj Chopra's gold changed our mentality'

The Indian athletics contingent had a very successful Commonwealth Games outing as they managed to win one gold, four silver and three bronze medals. Murali Sreeshankar, Priyanka Goswami, Avinash Sable, Abdulla Aboobacker, Tejaswin Shankar, Sandeep Kumar and Annu Rani were the medal winners in athletics. Following the conclusion of the CWG 2022 games, a couple of Indian athletes namely Eldhose Paul, Sandeep Kumar, Avinash Sable and Abdulla Aboobacker returned to the country and received a warm welcome at the Delhi Airport on Tuesday. In an interview with ANI, Paul made a big admission regarding Neeraj Chopra's role in their performance

CWG 2022: Eldhose Paul praises Neeraj Chopra 

Eldhose Paul Paul finished at the first position with the best jump of 17.03 m, which came in his third attempt. In his interview with ANI said that Neeraj Chopra's gold in Tokyo changed the mentality completely and how they have been breaking their limits. He said,  "I am happy that the national anthem was playing and the first two athletes were from India. I felt proud. We were already preparing for CWG and Asian Games. The World Championships gave us an experience that benefitted us. Neeraj Chopra's gold (in Tokyo 2020 Olympics) changed our mentality. Earlier we had set some limitations for us. But now, Indians are capable of doing something magical. We will have to keep working hard and breaking limits set by us."Abdulla Aboobacker finished at the second position, with the best jump of 17.02 m which came in his fifth attempt. while speaking about this performance said "I fell short of Gold. I will try to win a gold and do well in Asian Games." 

Avinash Sable, who won a silver in the men's 3000 m steeplechase was also very happy with his performance and said that lot of preparations were being done in order to have a shot at medal. He said, "Everyone used to say that we could come fourth or fifth in this event. But we prepared a lot so that we could win a medal. I fell short of gold. I will work on my shortcomings and try winning gold,". Sandeep Kumar added a bronze to India's medal tally after finishing in the third position in the final of the men's 10,000 m race walk on Sunday. Kumar clocked the timings of 38:49.21 in the final, which is his personal best.

CWG 2022 India medal tally 

India finished 4th in the medal tally with 22 Gold, 15 Silver and 23 Bronze medals and with a total of 61 medals at the Commonwealth Games 2022 held in Birmingham. Wrestling was India's most successful discipline at CWG 2022, while weightlifting has been a close second with 10 Indians winning medals (three gold), while boxing and table tennis is in joint-third place with seven winning medals.