Paris 2024 Olympics: One and done for Neeraj Chopra in qualification, defending champ storms into javelin throw final

The defending winner, Neeraj Chopra, beat everyone else in the qualification for the men’s javelin throw event at the Paris 2024 Olympics on Tuesday.

Neeraj threw 89.34 meters on his first try at the Stade de France, which was far enough to beat the direct qualification mark of 84 meters. The current world winner threw the second-best throw of his career.

The 26-year-old’s best jump was 89.94 meters, which he did at the Stockholm Diamond League in 2022. It is also the Indian record for the best javelin throw by a man.

Neeraj Chopra also had the best round of the season in the qualifying round in Paris. He had set a record of 88.36 meters in May at the Doha Diamond League, which put him in second place.

The final for men’s javelin throw is set for August 8 and will also be held at the same place.

Neeraj is in his second Olympics, this time in Paris. He won the gold medal in Tokyo 2020 with an 87.58

In the final, Julian Weber of Germany is likely to give the Indian javelin star a tough time. Weber met the bar for direct qualification and threw 87.76 meters on his first try. Neeraj’s gold-medal throw at the Tokyo Olympics was 18 cm shorter than the 29-year-old’s.

Anderson Peters of Grenada, who has won two world titles, also made a name for himself in the final by throwing an amazing 88.63 meters on his first try.

Jakub Vadljech of Czechia also made it to the final with an 85.63m throw. He beat Neeraj by 2cm in the Doha Diamond League earlier this year. He got second place in Tokyo with an 86.67m jump.

At the same time, Pakistan’s Arshad Nadeem threw 86.59 meters on his first try to make it to the Paris 2024 final. Nadeem came in second place at the 2023 World Championships, behind Neeraj. He is currently the Commonwealth winner.

Kishore Jena from India, on the other hand, did not make it to the final. He started the day in Group A and had a best throw of 80.73 meters on his first try. The Asian Games silver medalist’s second throw was not legal, and on his last try, he could only get 80.21m.

Because of this, Jena came in ninth in his heat and missed qualifying because only the top 12 athletes from each heat made it to the final.

In the women’s 400m, Kiran Pahal ran a time of 52.59 seconds and came in last in her repechage round heat. She did not make it to the semi-finals.

In the first round, she came in seventh place with a time of 52.51 seconds on Monday and moved on to the repechage round.

In round 1, only the top three athletes from each heat made it to the semi-final. Along with them in the semis will be the winner of the repechage round and the two fastest athletes from the other heats.

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