India's badminton star Saina Nehwal is grabbing headlines for her recent statement. After telling Vinesh Phogat to take the blame for not qualifying for the final just because of a mere 100 gms extra weight and not meeting the standard weight ahead of the wrestling finale.
After two days, Neeraj Chopra won silver in the javelin throw making India proud in the Olympics.
Saina Nehwal mentioned that she did not know that javelin was an Olympic sport until Neeraj Chopra won the gold medal in 2021,
The comment by Saina led to social media chatter and she got trolled. Some even made references like 'Kangana Ranaut of sports'.
Saina Nehwal told journalist Shubhankar Mishra in an interview, "When Neeraj won, that is when I got to know about 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. Because athletics has many sports. I got to know only when the results came, that is when I knew. I am sure people didn't know about badminton. I did not know who Prakash sir is..."
"It's not that you don't want to know, but you're so busy in your 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.
For the unversed, Saina Nehal, who represented India at the Olympics thrice and won a bronze medal in 2012, said it is more than enough if one is perfect in their field.
Sania Nehwal trolled
Many users said, "Saina Nehwal is Kangana Ranaut of sports."
Another mentioned, "Very surprising that a sportsperson of Saina Nehwal's calibre should feign ignorance about javelin event."
A user said, "Entire India only knew Saina Nehwal because her name sounded similar to tennis sensation Sania Mirza."
Saina Nehwal hit back at trolls, especially those who made Kangana Ranaut reference.
Taking to social media she wrote, "Thanks for the compliment.. Kangana is beautiful...but I had to be perfect in my sport and I proudly achieved world number 1 and an Olympic medal in badminton for my country ...again I will say this ghar pe bait ke comment karna easy hai and sports khelna difficult (sitting at home and commenting is easy but playing sports isn't). Neeraj is our superstar and he made the sport so popular in India."
Earlier after the disqualification of Vinesh Phogat just before the final match, Sania said, She should take the blame too. Before such a big match, such a mistake is not right. She is an Asian Games champion and a Commonwealth Games champion. Because ahead of such a big match, any player will be alert that the weight should be within permissible limits. How such a mistake happened, only she or her coach can answer. But I am feeling dejected that we have missed one of the sure-shot medals."
Saina Nehwal, a recipient of the Padma Shri and the Padma Bhushan, joined the BJP in 2020.
