Neeraj Chopra with a cub. (Instagram)
Neeraj Chopra’s latest social media post, not geo-tagged to either a petting zoo nor a private ranch, brought mystery and mirth to kick off December.
In two pictures posted by India’s greatest individual Olympian, Chopra is seen cagily lifting what looks like a lion cub, with the backdrop unidentified. The double Olympic medallist, trains in South Africa, where wildlife is more pervasive at nature parks and ranches and zoo, but the exact location could not be confirmed.
What drew a lot of glowing warmth and some giggles were comments from his followers. While some predictably spoke of Lion King, Simba-Mafusa vibes, there was plenty of good-natured speculation over what the cub precisely was.
Given ‘sher’ is widely bestowed upon Indian champions, many started out naturally captioning it a ‘tiger cub’, or baby sher with Sr sher. But the unstriped animal was obviously a lion cub, if not a seriously oversized tom-cat. Some snarked it was a stuffed toy, while others settled for lame-duck humour of saying that was a GOAT with a tiger (meaning lion).
While debate was rife settling on if it was a tiger cub or a lion cub, some followers cheekily advised Chopra to not fling the creature, pursuing 90 metres, out of habit. Others lectured him to put a disclaimer of the lion cub being picked up from a zoo, because impressionable “Indian uncles and aunties” might start considering petting lion cubs at home, without knowing what’s involved.
The post had garnered 8,12,100 Likes on Instagram and was viewed 53,54,000 times on Twitter, including 35,000 likes.
Neeraj Chopra has a pet dog ‘Tokyo’, a golden retriever at his Panipat home, and is known to be an animal lover.
The quest for crossing 90 metres will continue into another season, but Chopra with a new coach in world record holder Jan Zelezny, will aim to defend his world title, and upturn the Olympic result against Arshad Nadeem.
In his downtime though through a pre-offseason, Chopra will continue posting interesting snapshots from his many adventures.
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