Neeraj Chopra Personal Best: What is the Indian javelin thrower's PB ahead of Paris 2024 Olympics?
Fondly known as the 'Golden Boy', Neeraj Chopra will vie for a podium finish for India at the Paris Olympics 2024. He had become the first Indian track and field athlete to win the gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics with an 87.58-metre throw.
Chopra delivered his personal best performance of 89.94m to secure a second-place finish at the Stockholm Diamond League 2022. With this performance, he bested his national record of 89.30m, set at the Paavo Nurmi Games in Turku, Finland. In the same year, he became the first Indian athlete to win the Diamond League Trophy, throwing 88.44m.
In 2023, Chopra became India's first-ever world champion in any athletics discipline at the World Athletics Championships held in Budapest. He achieved the feat with a throw of 88.17m. Then, the talented athlete secured a gold medal in the Asian Games in Hangzhou with a throw of 88.88m.
Interestingly, it all started in the 2018 Commonwealth Games, when Neeraj Chopra became the first Indian javelin thrower to win a gold with a throw of 86.47m. Then, he replicated the same achievement by securing the yellow metal in the Asian Games with his best attempt of 88.06m.
In May 2023, Chopra climbed to the top of the world rankings in the men's javelin throw with 1,455 points. Ahead of the Paris Olympics, he is in the second spot with 1,413 points to his name.
In an astounding stat, the Haryana-born athlete has had 10 podium finishes in 13 prominent international competitions to date, while winning a gold medal in eight of them.
Performances of Neeraj Chopra in 2024
In May 2024, Neeraj Chopra participated in the Doha Diamond League and finished second with a throw of 88.36m, just falling short of Jakub Vadlejch's 88.38m.
Then, the Federation Cup in Bhubaneshwar saw him finish first with a throw of 82.27m. The esteemed athlete won the gold medal at Paavo Nurmi Games with an attempt of 85.97m.
It will be interesting to see if the 26-year-old can breach the 89m mark in the Paris Olympics and win another gold medal for the country. The men's javelin throw event gets underway on August 6 with the qualification round.