2024-09-18 01:22:26
New Delhi: India’s two-time Olympic medalist javelin throw star Neeraj Chopra qualified for the finals of the prestigious Diamond League by finishing fourth in the overall table after 14 series. The Diamond League finals will be held in Brussels on 13 and 14 September. This competition will also mark the end of this season in athletics. Chopra finished second in the Doha and Lausanne stages of the Diamond League. He earned a total of 14 points.
He did not participate in the last series in Zurich on Thursday. The 26-year-old finished two points behind third-placed Jacob Vadlech of the Czech Republic. Grenada’s Anderson Peters and German star Julian Weber finished in the top two positions with 29 and 21 points respectively. Peters had overtaken Weber in the Zurich competition. Chopra, who won gold at the Tokyo Olympics and silver at the Paris Olympics, was struggling with fitness this season.
The Haryana player has said that his back injury has been troubling him since before the Olympic Games, which is becoming an obstacle in his way to touch the 90 meter mark. Chopra had finished second behind Peters in the Lausanne leg of the Diamond League. Peters had then thrown 90.61 meters. In the Paris Olympics, Pakistan’s Arshad Nadeem won the gold medal with a throw of 92.97 meters.
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Chopra had said about his future plans last month, ‘First of all I have to go to the doctor and make my waist completely fit. I also have to work on my technique, after which I will try to throw far.’ Chopra won the Lausanne stage of the Diamond League in 2022 and 2023. He finished second in the Diamond League final played in Eugene, USA last year. The winner of the Diamond League final gets the prestigious Diamond Trophy, US $ 30,000 and a wild card for the World Athletics Championships. Chopra will also end this season with this final.