Neeraj Chopra won his first World Championships gold on Sunday in Budapest with a throw of 88.17 meters. He placed second in the 2022 competition. Chopra, the recently minted world champion, will participate in the men’s javelin throw on Thursday and hopes to keep up his perfect record in the coveted Diamond League tournament. Scroll down to read more details about Neeraj Chopra Aims To Win At The Diamond League In Zurich.
Neeraj Chopra Aims To Win At The Diamond League In Zurich
The Indian superstar, Neeraj Chopra, joined Andreas Thorkildsen of Norway and Jan Zelezny of the Czech Republic as the only other javelin throwers in history to hold both the Olympic and World Championships championships. In addition to winning the World Championships in 1993, 1995, and 2001, Zelezny won the Olympic gold medal in 1992, 1996, and 2000. At the 2008 Olympic Games and the 2009 World Championships, Thorkildsen took home the gold medal.
The 25-year-old Chopra won two Diamond League contests in Doha (May 5) and Lausanne (June 30) before his victory at the World Championships.
Chopra will face off against well-known opponents in Zurich, where he is competing four days after being declared world champion, including Julian Weber of Germany, Jakub Vadlejch of the Czech Republic, who won bronze in Budapest with 86.67m, and two-time world champion Anderson Peters of Grenada.
Only Arshad Nadeem of Pakistan, who won the silver medal in Budapest, won’t be in Zurich.
Chopra, who took home the Diamond League championship trophy in 2017, is in third place with 16 points after two competitions. The top two finishers are Vadlejch (21 points from three races) and Weber (19 points from three events), who tied for fourth in Budapest with 85.79m.
With 15 points from three competitions, Peters, who has had a difficult season and was unable to advance to the World Championships final round, is in fourth place.
Before the season finale in Eugene, Oregon, on September 16–17, when the Diamond League winner will be crowned, the Zurich leg of the Diamond League series is the last one where the men’s javelin throw event is on the schedule.
In Eugene, only the top six finishers will participate. Chopra took home the victory in the Zurich-based 2022 championship. Murali Sreeshankar, a long jumper, will also be competing and will be attempting to atone for his failure to get to the World Championships final round.
Sreeshankar, who owns a season’s and personal best of 8.41m, finished 22nd overall in the qualification round by leaping a subpar 7.74m. With 10 points from two competitions, he is now third in the Diamond League long jump rankings.
Miltiadis Tentoglou, a Greek Olympic and world champion, and Tajay Gayle, and Carey McLeod, both from Jamaica, will also compete. Gayle had placed second in Budapest with an 8.27-meter leap.
Tentoglou, who jumped 8.52 meters for the gold at the World Championships, is in first place in the Diamond League rankings after three tournaments.
