Ranjith Kumar Ravichandran became a viral sensation last month when his ‘random’ tweet was quote tweeted by Neeraj Chopra and now, the Coimbatore resident is at the Neeraj Chopra NC Classic event thanks to a fully paid trip thanks to the javelin star and the organizers.
“If anyone sponsor me 2000 rupees, I can go to watch this from Coimbatore,” Ranjith had posted. Much to everyone’s delight, Neeraj quote tweeted the post, saying that, “Hi, Ranjith. You’ve got a full VVIP experience waiting for you in Bengaluru because your trip to the nc_classic is on me! And thanks to RadissonHotels, you’ll be staying about 90 metres away from me. See you soon.”
“I just randomly tweeted, I must have forgotten about it. After a day or so, suddenly a notification popped up in ‘X’ platform, a quoted tweet from Neeraj himself. I was like: Is this even real? Somebody come and pinch me so that I can feel it,” Ranjith told PTI.
“All of a sudden everything was happening. People were sharing the news and I was getting calls and all those things. I couldn’t believe it initially. I checked twice. It’s from Neeraj Chopra. I had to refresh and check it again whether it’s real or not. Then I got a call (from NC Classic organisers) saying you are the lucky person to get sponsored to visit the event, stay in a (five-star) hotel and all those things. It was a pretty surreal moment at that time,” he added.
The Neeraj Chopra Classic, the country’s first-ever international javelin competition, will take place in Bengaluru’s Sree Kanteerava Stadium on Saturday. A dream of Neeraj, the even bears his name like the Mondo Classic and Keeley Classic that are already part of the athletics calendar. NC Classic has been granted the World Athletics Gold level status.
Asked what will be his first reaction when he meets Chopra in person for the first time, Ranjith said, “I think I will be frozen for a moment. I will ask, are you real? I’ll also get a signature so that I can probably frame it for a lifetime.”
(With agency inputs)
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