Neeraj Chopra confirmed his spot in World Championships finals

On Friday, Neeraj Chopra achieved the greatest performance of his season and the fourth-best record of his career to qualify for the men’s javelin throw final at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary. 

The Olympic champion threw an incredible 88.77m in his first attempt, putting him in the final on Sunday. The qualifying score was 83m. 

With this throw, Neeraj also won automatic qualification for the 2024 Olympics in Paris, where the qualifying mark is 85.50m. On July 1, the qualifying season began.

Neeraj Chopra proves himself once again:

To put Neeraj’s effort into perspective, Germany’s Julian Webber was the only other athlete in Qualification Set A to break the 80m mark in the first round of throws. 

Even after three attempts, none of the other 15 athletes in the same set were able to achieve automatic qualification. 

They will now have to rely on the outcome of Qualification Set B. If most of them fail to clear the qualification threshold of 83m, the top 12 from both groups will compete in the final.

DP Manu at the third spot:

DP Manu, the other Indian athlete in the same group, finished third with a best attempt of 81.31m, behind Webber (82.39m). He has a good chance of qualifying for the finals unless nine other athletes throw more than him in qualification B.

Anderson Peters, the defending champion, was eliminated after three attempts with a poor best of 78.49. 

He finished eighth in Group A and will have to rely on a bad performance from most of the athletes in Group B to advance to the finals.

Neeraj won Gold at the Tokyo Olympics:

The heaviness in the air and the breeze flowing from opposing directions made it impossible to attain greater distance with the weapon, which was one of the key reasons for the athletes’ subpar performance. 

It had little effect on Neeraj, who shattered his best of 89.94m in one attempt.

The silver medalist from the previous World Championships is aiming for Gold this time to complete a full quota of titles in his storied career. In Tokyo, Neeraj earned an Olympic gold medal. 

He has gold medals from the Asian Games and the Commonwealth Games and a Diamond League title. Last year in Oregon, the 25-year-old placed second to Anderson Peters in the World Championship.

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