Neeraj Chopra to shift training base from South Africa to Turkiye

NEW DELHI: Reigning Olympic champion

Neeraj Chopra

has decided to shift his training base from

South Africa

's Potchefstroom to Antalya in Turkiye, as the star javelin thrower looks to commence his athletics season with one of the

Diamond Leagues

in Doha or Rabat.
Neeraj will be heading to Gloria

Sports

Arena in Antalya in the first week of March for a period of 79 days.

He will remain stationed there till the last week of May. Neeraj will be accompanied by his coach and biomechanics expert, Dr Klaus Bartonietz, and physio Ishaan Marwaha.
His proposal was cleared at the 124th meeting of the

Mission Olympic Cell

(MOC) held here on Thursday. Neeraj moved to the North-West University in Potchefstroom on December 5 as part of his preparations for the Paris Olympic Games and will continue training there until February 29 before shifting his base to Europe.
In his previous athletics season, Neeraj became the world champion and successfully defended his Asiad title, besides finishing second at the Diamond League Finals.

The MOC also cleared proposals of shooters Anjum Moudgil, Niraj Rajput and Ramita for financial assistance towards participation in ISAS Dortmund in Poland and Germany with Ramita heading for Pellet testing in Germany.
Similarly, table tennis players Sreeja Akula and Archana Kamath will head to Beirut, Lebanon to take part in WTT Feeder and WTT Feeder 2 events as part of their training for Paris. Tokyo Paralympic medallist Bhavina Patel will head for the ITTF fa20 Lignano Master Para Open in Italy and the ITTF fa20 Costa Brava Spanish Para Open in Spain. Para athletes

Ajeet Singh

, Sandeep Chaudhary and Navdeep will travel to Italy for the World Para Athletics Grand Prix.
In another development, the MOC has decided to induct six sportspersons under the sports ministry's Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS). India's top men's singles tennis player Sumit Nagal benefitted hugely after some impressive outings at the Australian Open - where he not only made it to the main draw of the tournament but even managed to register an upset victory over 31st seed Alexander Bublik in the first round - and the Chennai and Bengaluru Open. The other new inductees are para athletes Soman Rana, Bhagyashri Jadhav, Rampal, Simran and Kapil Parma.