World Athletics Championships: Neeraj Chopra bags India's first silver medal with historic 88.13m in javelin throw

Olympic Gold medalist Neeraj Chopra clinched the silver medal at the World Athletics Championships 2022 on Saturday to end India`s 19-year-long wait for a medal in the world championship.

This was India`s second medal at the World Championships and the first podium finish since long jumper Anju Bobby George won a bronze medal at Paris in 2003.

Neeraj Chopra`s best effort of 88.13m in the final at the Hayward Field was short of Anderson Peters` gold medal-winning mark of 90.54m while Tokyo 2020 silver medallist Jakub Vadlejch won the bronze with 88.09m.

The 24-year-old Chopra had earlier made the cut for the final courtesy of an 88.39m mark in the qualification.

Chopra began with a foul throw and had 82.39m and 86.37m to be at fourth after three rounds. He got his rhythm back with a big fourth round throw of 88.13m, his fourth career-best effort, to jump to second place, which he held on to till the end. His fifth and sixth throws were fouls.

Defending champion Anderson Peters of Grenada won gold with a best throw of 90.54m while Olympic silver winner Jakub Vadlejch of Czech Republic took the bronze with 88.09m.

Born in Khandra village in Panipat district of Haryana, Chopra first came into limelight when he won gold in the 2016 South Asian Games in Guwahati, equalling the national record with a throw of 82.23.

Just 19-years at that time, Chopra set a junior world record on the way to winning gold in the World U-20 Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland.

He could not qualify for the 2016 Rio Olympics because his efforts came after the qualifying period had ended. But then he hurled the spear to a season-best distance of 86.47 metres to win gold at the 2018 Commonwealth Games.

A few months later, he went on to win gold at the Asian Games in Jakarta, rewriting his own national record.

Continuing his brilliant form, he broke the national record again with a throw of 89.94m to finish second in the Stockholm Diamond League 2022 in Sweden recently.

With Agencies Input