Saina Nehwal hits back at trolls who called her ‘Kangana Ranaut of Indian Sports’ - ‘I proudly achieved...’

Indian Badminton player Saina Nehwal was recently trolled after she revealed that she was unaware that the javelin throw was part of the Olympics until Neeraj Chopra’s win. Saina received a lot of flak for her comment and was tagged ‘Kangana Ranaut of Indian Sports.’ Reacting to this, Saina has now hit back at trolls and said, ‘ghar pe bait ke comment karna easy hai and sports khelna difficult.’

Saina reacts to trolls

Saina took to X (formerly known as Twitter) and reshared the Hindustan Times tweet which tagged her as the ‘Kangana Ranaut of Indian Sports.’ Reacting to this news article, Saina wrote, “Thanks for this 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 wasy hai and sports khelna difficult. Neeraj is our sport star and he made the sport so popular in India.”

For the unversed, Neeraj Chopra made history by becoming the second Indian to win a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics.

Saina recently told journalist Shubhankar Mishra in an interview that she got to know about javelin throw after Neeraj won the medal at the Olympics. She said, “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.”

Saina on Neeraj Chopra

Saina went on to add that athletics has many sports and she did not know about the javelin throw like how many people would not know about Badminton. She added, “I am sure people didn't know about badminton. I did not know who Prakash sir is..." Speaking in her defence, Saina said that the lack of knowledge is not because one does not want to know, it is because a player does not have much time to go so 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.

Saina received a lot of backlash for her lack of knowledge regarding javelin throw and was even compared to actor-turned-politician Kangana Ranaut. An X user said "Kangana Ranaut of sports,", while another netizen said, “Very surprising that a sportsperson of Saina Nehwal's calibre should feign ignorance about javelin event."

Badminton player Saina Nehwal represented India at the Olympics thrice and won a bronze medal in 2012.