Javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra, on Saturday, 7 August, made history by winning the first Olympic gold medal in athletics for India, and becoming the 2nd Indian ever to win an individual gold medal at the Olympic Games.

The road to Olympics, though, is not an easy one. Along with hard work, dedication and determination, it is also fraught with hardships, disappointments, injuries, and pain.

In the case of Neeraj Chopra, one such make-or-break situation came in the form of an elbow injury that almost kept him from qualifying for the Olympics, much less winning it.

FIT speaks to Dr Dinshaw Pardiwala, Head of centre for sports medicine at Kokilaben Hospital, who performed the critical surgery on Chopra's throwing arm that led him to the Olympic gold.

I'm really happy that he's done extremely well, and I'm not surprised that he's done so well. I mean, this is something I would have expected from him.

To be quite honest, the part that I have played in his gold medal success is really minimal.

I think 95 percent of the medal really belongs to him, because he's really the one who has put in all the effort and dedication over the years.

If you ask me, 4 percent would be the coach's part in it, and then that 1 percent comes with all the additional support, and I think I would fall into that 1 percent.

He had an injury that needed to be fixed, which was fixed. Thereafter, it's how well he uses that to his advantage.

If he hadn't done too well, I wouldn't feel bad for him because I'd know that he's done his best. But the fact that he's won, I'm very happy for him! That's all because of his hard work.

I will tell you what I can tell you. Neeraj had an injury on his right elbow, which is his throwing elbow.

Sometimes, you will land up with small bone growths in the joint itself, and sometimes with an acute worsening they can snap and break and start irritating the joint and lock the joint.

The surgery performed on him (Chopra) was an arthroscopic surgery. This involves a small telescope that goes into the elbow joint, with the help of which we repaired and reconstructed the joint.

"Risk being involved?' that's a tough question.

All surgeries come with some degree of risk, but if the surgeon has done the procedure many times before, the risk would be minimal. With such a procedure, it is possible to fully restore the patient back to normalcy.

When you say 'restore normalcy', what we are really referring to is restoring the anatomy or the structure back to normalcy. As surgeons, we can fix it up to how nature made it, to 'normalcy'.

As part of the surgery, he had lost some of his strength and his range, and he was in pain. So after that a whole period of rehabilitation is very important to bring them back to their performance level.

Rehabilitation typically takes about 4 months. In these 4 months, we focused on strengthening the elbow, and worked on his range with the help of exercises.

Once that's done, we need to work on the entire schematic chain.

In any throwing sport, it's not just one joint that's doing the job. To throw something at a distance, you need to generate force.

That force comes in right from your feet, that transfers to your torso, your core, your back, your upper back, you also generate that force with your shoulder, and then transfuse it with your elbow and your hand, so it's a full schematic chain.

Not, really. Most of the patients that I treat are athletes, among these some will be recreational athletes, some will be competitive, elite and international athletes.

But, with patients, it's never like one is more important than the other. As doctors, I wouldn't treat X patient differently from the way I would treat Y.

For any competitive athlete, the main thing (to keep in mind) is that you need to work on your fitness.

No matter what kind of sport you play, and at what level, your fitness is critical, besides your skill.

When we talk of fitness, there are many different aspects to this.

First is strength and conditioning.

When it comes to strength, you need to make sure that your muscles, which are your main motors, have the ability to provide the energy either in sudden bursts or in endurance, depending on the requirement of the sport. So, you have to train accordingly.

The second part is your flexibility. If you have stiff joints, or stiff muscles, higher the chances of you landing up with tears and injuries.

Third, is stability. You need joints that are stable so that you won't dislocate them.

Fourth would be coordination. If you have all of this, and your muscles are well coordinated, you'll find that your functioning would be much better.

Finally, you require your balance and your entire proprioception–the ability to use all of these components together to deliver your results.

Good bone health comes down to a good diet. If they eat a healthy balanced diet, that seems to be good enough. It doesn't necessarily need to be non vegetarian, you don't require protein shakes or any supplementation as such.

Getting some amount of sunlight will also help strengthen bones.

Once again, overall fitness is key for even children, no matter what sport they are playing. And it's good to start early when it comes to building one's fitness.