[ad_1]
File photo of Neeraj Chopra
India’s two-time Olympic medallist javelin throw star Neeraj Chopra has qualified for this month’s season finals of the prestigious Diamond League after finishing fourth in the overall standings at the end of his 14 series meets around the world. The season finals will be a two-day affair in Brussels on September 14 and 15. Chopra earned 14 points from his two second-place finishes in the one-day meets held in Doha and Lausanne. He skipped the final series meet in Zurich on Thursday.
The 26-year-old is two points behind Czech Jakub Vadlech. Granada’s Anderson Peters and German star Julian Weber are in the top two positions with 29 and 21 points respectively. Peters had beaten Weber at the Zurich meet.
Chopra, who won gold at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 and silver at the Paris edition last month, has struggled with his fitness this season.
The Haryana athlete said a back injury had been troubling him since before the Olympics and was hampering his efforts to touch the 90m mark.
The Indian athlete finished second in the Lausanne Diamond Leg, where Peters threw 90.61 meters. In the Paris Olympics, Pakistan’s Arshad Nadeem won the gold medal by throwing 92.97 meters.
“The first goal is to go to the doctor and get my back 100 per cent fit. I’ll also get better technically and try to throw the ball far again,” he said last month about his plans for this year and the coming year.
Chopra won the Lausanne stage in 2022 and 2023 and finished second to Vadlejch in the winner-takes-all final in Eugene, USA last year.
Each Diamond League season finals champion is awarded the coveted “Diamond Trophy”, US$30,000 in prize money, and a wild card to the World Athletics Championships.
The conclusion of the DL will mark the end of Chopra’s season.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
Topics mentioned in this article
[ad_2]
Source link