Neeraj will start the season from Doha leg as Diamond League champions
Competing for the first time as Diamond League champion, star javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra will once again be up against his familiar rivals when he takes the field in the first leg of the prestigious event on Friday. The long season begins with the Doha leg of the Diamond League and Neeraj would be looking to start the season with a strong performance.
The 25-year-old World Championship silver-medallist will be up against world champion Andersen Peters of Granada (best 93.07m) and Tokyo Olympics silver-medallist Jakub Wallach of Czech Republic (best 90.88m) at the Qatar Sports Club here. Like players will be challenged. Neeraj’s personal best performance is 89.94m which is also a national record. He had finished fourth with 87.43m in 2018 in his only participation at the Doha Diamond League in 2018. Neeraj could not participate here last year due to lack of ‘overall fitness and strength’. He became the first Indian to become the Diamond League champion after winning the 2022 Grand Finale in Zurich last September.
A month earlier, he had become the first Indian to win the Diamond League meet in Lausanne. Neeraj said last month that he is feeling better physically and technically at the moment but it will not be easy for him to win the top prize in the season-opening Diamond League considering the extremely tough competition here last year. Besides Neeraj, Peters and Wallach, European champion Julian Weber of Germany (best 89.54m), 2012 Olympic champion Keshorn Walcott of Trinidad and Tobago (best 90.16m) and former world champion and 2016 Olympic silver medalist Julius of Kenya Yego (best performance 92.72m) will also challenge for the title.
Neeraj said on the pre-number of the competition, “It is my first competition of the season. It’s always good when you have big competitors.” He added, “Wallach has already thrown his javelin 88.38m in Potchefstroom (South Africa, on April 18), so I think tomorrow will be a big competition. Will get to see. Along with this, Doha is famous for the throw of 90 meters. So we will see, hope everyone gets a good result tomorrow.” Neeraj, India’s first gold medalist in athletics, aims to touch the 90m distance.
Whether he manages to do so in the first contest of the season remains to be seen. “Last year, I fell just six centimeters away from clearing 90 metres. I hope to do it this year but I will not put any pressure on myself. It is a magical mark and the 90m club is famous in the world of javelin. I hope to enter it this year.” The Doha meet will also feature 2022 Commonwealth Games triple jump champion Eldhoj Paul.
Tokyo Olympic champion Pedro Pichardo, Cuba’s Diamond League winner Andy Diaz Hernandez and two-time Olympic gold medalist (2012 and 2016) and five-time world champion Christian Taylor of the United States are competing in the event. Paul has a personal best of 16.99m, so it will be tough for him to break into the top three. He won the gold medal at the Commonwealth Games (Birmingham), however, with a distance of 17.03m with the help of the wind.
