File photo of Saina Nehwal© Instagram
India’s badminton star Saina Nehwal found herself becoming a topic of social media chatter over certain comments made by her during a podcast. Saina made an honest admission during the interview, saying didn’t know that Javelin Throw was a part of Olympic Games until India’s Neeraj Chopra bagged a gold medal at the Tokyo Games in 2021. The comment by Saina, though made out of honesty, saw her getting trolled on social media, with references like ‘Kangana Ranaut of sports’ also made.
“When Neeraj won [the Tokyo gold in 2021], that’s when I got to know there is such an event in athletics,” Saina had said during the podcast. The statement left many fans shocked, and some got into a trolling mood.
Hitting back at trolls, especially those who made Kangana Ranaut reference, Saina said that it’s too easy to sit at home and comment but playing sports and winning medals for country is tough.
“Thanks for the compliment.. Kangana is beautiful…but I had to be perfect in my sport and I proudly achieved world number 1 and 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 super star and he made the sport so popular in India,” Saina wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
Saina had found herself in a similar equation with trolls over her Jasprit Bumrah comment earlier. Kolkata Knight Riders batter Angkrish Raghuvanshi had criticised Saina with a Jasprit Bumrah post after the shuttler drew a cricket vs badminton inference.
“Why would I face Jasprit Bumrah anyways? If I had been playing for 8 years maybe I would have answered Jasprit Bumrah,” Nehwal said in response.
“If Jasprit Bumrah plays badminton with me maybe he won’t be able to take my smash. We should not fight with ourselves in our own country for these things. That’s what I want to say (earlier). Every sport is best in its place. But I want to say, give value to other sports as well. Otherwise, where will we get sporting culture from? And cricket, Bollywood will always be our focus,” she had said.
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