Olympic gold medalist Neeraj Chopra on Sunday became the first Indian to win a gold medal in the World Athletics Championships with a big throw of 88.17m in the men’s javelin final in Hungary’s Budapest.
The 25-year-old Chopra achieved his best throw of the day in his second attempt. He had a foul to start with, but then got 88.17m, 86.32m, 84.64m, 87.73m and 83.98m.
Pakistan’s reigning Commonwealth Games champion Arshad Nadeem took the silver with his season’s best throw of 87.82m, while Jakub Vadlejch of Czech Republic got the bronze.
Chopra, who had become the first Indian Olympic track and field gold medallist in Tokyo Games in 2021, had won a silver in the 2022 edition of World Championships.
Chopra also became only the third javelin thrower in history to simultaneously hold the Olympics and World Championships titles after Jan Zelezny of Czech Republic and Andreas Thorkildsen of Norway.
Zelezny won Olympics gold in 1992, 1996 and 2000 while winning World Championships title in 1993, 1995 and 2001. Thorkildsen clinched gold in 2008 Olympics and 2009 World Championships.
Chopra has won gold in the Asian Games (2018) and Commonwealth Games (2018). He has also won four individual Diamond League Meeting titles (two each in 2022 and 2023) and Diamond League champion’s trophy in 2022. He also became junior world champion in 2016 and won the Asian Championships title in 2017.
