Lausanne (Switzerland): India's only two-time Olympics medalist Neeraj Chopra finished second in the Lausanne Diamond League after registering his season-best throw of 89.49m in his 6th and final attempt at the event on Thursday, August 22.
Grenada's Anderson Peters with his 90.61m final throw and Germany's Julian Weber with a best throw of 88.37m secured first and third spots respectively. The fourth spot was secured by Artur Felfner of Ukraine, whose best throw was 83.38m.
This was Neeraj's best throw of the season and his second-best ever of 89.94m achieved in the 2022 edition of the same competition.
In the recently concluded Paris Olympics 2024, the 26-year-old covered a distance of 89.45m which propelled him to bag the silver medal, his second at the Summer Games after gold in Tokyo 2020.
Neeraj, who hails from Haryana, was in fourth place till the end of the fourth round of throws until he managed to cover 85.58m in his fifth throw to storm into the top three and to qualify for the final, scheduled to be held in Brussels in Belgium next month.
On the other hand, Paris 2024 Olympics gold medalist from Pakistan - Arshad Nadeem was missing from the competition. There is no official reason provided from Arshad Nadeem for his absence from the Diamond League. Maybe he could be suffering from an injury or is busy with felicitation programs in Pakistan.
Earlier, the ace India javelin thrower, in the press conference, had mentioned that he would undergo surgery for his groin injury after discussing it with his doctors.
Meanwhile in the Paris Olympics, though Chopra couldn't win gold, he still made history for India, becoming the second male and third overall to win back-to-back medals in the Olympics after wrestler Sushil Kumar who won a bronze and silver in the 2008 and 2012 Games. P.V. Sindhu is the other Indian to win medals in successive Olympics, with silver in 2016 at Rio and bronze in Tokyo in 2020.
Chopra threw the javelin to a distance of 89.45m, improving on his previous throw of 87.58m, which won him the gold medal in Tokyo. However, this was not enough to secure the gold in Paris, as his friend and arch-rival Arshad Nadeem of Pakistan set an Olympic record with a throw of 92.97m, winning the gold medal.
