World Athletics Championships 2022: Neeraj Chopra's date with history

While a nation was asleep, the 24-year-old man from Panipat took to the field in Eugene (USA) to book his place in the finals of the men’s javelin throw competition. Neeraj threw his spear to an impressive distance of 88.39m in his very first attempt during the qualification stage to sail into the final with consummate ease. The Indian is poised to finish among the medallists on early Sunday morning (IST) when the top-12 finalists line up at the University of Oregon’s Hayward Field.

Neeraj progressed to the final through the automatic qualification route after comfortably breaching the 83.50m mark. He didn’t take the field for the second time, preserving his energy for D-day. Neeraj’s effort in Oregon was the third best-ever of his career after his personal best distance of 89.94m at the Wanda Diamond League in Stockholm and an equally sensational 89.30m at the Paavo Nurmi Games in Turku.

The defending champion, Grenadian Anderson Peters, topped the qualifiers with an effort of 89.91m, followed by Neeraj. Germany’s Julian Webber (87.28m) and Czech Republic’s Jakub Vadlejch (85.23m) were the other two automatic qualifiers. Neeraj’s teammate, Rohit Yadav, too, made the cut with a best throw of 80.42m to finish 11th among 12 qualifiers.

This is the first time Neeraj has made the Worlds final. In his debut outing at the 2017 Worlds in London, he had failed to qualify for the final round. He couldn’t clear the automatic qualification mark of 83m, with his best throw recorded being 82.26m.

Neeraj had missed the 2019 Worlds in Doha after failing to recover from an elbow surgery. “It was a good start. I am also happy for Jakub (Vadlejch).

I’ll give my 100 per cent in the final. Every day is different. I’ll just give my best.