File photo of Neeraj Chopra
India’s two-time Olympic medal-winning javelin throw star Neeraj Chopra has qualified for this month’s season finale of the prestigious Diamond League after finishing fourth in the overall standings at the end of its 14 series meetings across the world. The season finale will be a two-day affair on September 14 and 15 in Brussels. Chopra accumulated 14 points from his two second-place finishes in the one-day meets held in Doha and Lausanne. He skipped the last series meet in Zurich on Thursday.
The 26-year-old is two points adrift of Czechia’s Jakub Vadlech. Grenada’s Anderson Peters and German star Julian Weber occupy the top two spots with 29 and 21 points respectively. Peters had pipped Weber in the Zurich meet.
Chopra, who won gold in the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 and added a silver to his kitty in the Paris edition last month, has been struggling with his fitness this season.
The Haryana-lad has talked about a groin injury troubling him since before the Olympic Games that has come in the way of his quest to hit the 90m mark.
The Indian finished second in the Lausanne Diamond Leg, bested by Peters, who threw 90.61m. In Paris Olympics, Pakistan’s Arshad Nadeem had taken the gold with a monster throw of 92.97m.
“First goal, go to the doctor and make my groin 100 per cent fit and also I will be technically better and try to throw far again,” he had said last month about his plans for this year and the coming one.
Chopra had won the Lausanne leg in 2022 and 2023 and finished second behind Vadlejch in the winner-takes-all finale in Eugene, USA, last year.
Each Diamond League season finale champion is awarded a prestigious “Diamond Trophy”, USD 30,000 prize money and a wild card for the World Athletics Championships.
The DL finale will mark the end of Chopra’s season.
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