LAUSANNE: Olympic champion javelin Neeraj Chopra on Friday he scripted the story when he became the first Indian to conquer a Diamond League Title match by winning the Lausanne stage here.
24-year-old Chopra, who had retired from the Birmingham Commonwealth Games due to a “small” groin injury he sustained while winning a silver at the World Championships last month, threw the spear at 89.08m in his first attempt to seal victory in style.
Chopra rested and rehabilitated for a month, but it looked like the injury hadn’t occurred at all as he continued his vintage form. The 89.08m pitch was his third best effort in his career. His second pitch measured 85.18m before passing his third attempt.
His fourth shot was a foul as he made it past his fifth attempt again before hitting 80.04m in the sixth and final round. Only the first three after the fifth round get the sixth shot.
The young man from Khandra village near Panipat in Haryana became the first Indian to win a Diamond League crown.
Before Chopra, discus thrower Vikas Gowda is the only Indian to have made it into the top three in a Diamond League match. Gowda had finished second twice – in New York in 2012 and in Doha in 2014 – and third on two occasions – Shanghai and Eugene in 2015.
“I am happy with my result tonight. 89m is a very good performance. I am particularly happy because I am coming back from an injury and tonight it was a good indicator that I have recovered well”, Chopra said after the event.
“I had to miss the Commonwealth Games due to an injury and was a bit nervous. Tonight it gave me a lot of confidence to finish the season at the top, with a good performance in the Zurich DL final.”
Jakub, silver medalist at the Tokyo Olympics Vadlejch finished second with a best shot of 85.88m while Curtis Thompson of the United States was third with a best effort of 83.72m.
Chopra qualified for the Diamond League finals in Zurich on 7 and 8 September and also became the first Indian to do so. Despite the win, he remained in fourth place with 15 points, adding eight points on Friday. The top six after the Lausanne stage qualify for the finals in Zurich.
Vadlejch remained in first place with 27 points, followed by Julian Weber (19 points) of Germany and world champion Anderson Peters of Grenada (16 points). Weber and Peters did not participate in Lausanne. Peters is recovering from an injury after being mugged inside a boat in his country earlier this month.
Thompson and Latvian Patriks Gailums also qualified for the finals in Zurich.
Chopra also qualified for the 2023 World Championships in Budapest, Hungary, surpassing the qualification score of 85.20m.
Chopra had finished second in the Stockholm leg of the prestigious event behind Peters with a national throwing record of 89.94m, just 6cm from the 90m mark, the gold standard in the world of javelin throwing.
At the World Championships in Eugene, USA, he wasn’t in medal position until round three, but here Chopra was leading from the first pitch to the end even though the eight-man field wasn’t that strong.
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