India’s greatest-ever field athletics champion, star javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra, recently concluded his athletic events with a second position in the Diamond League 2024.
According to the Diamond League season finale, the champion is awarded the prestigious ‘Diamond Trophy’, a record prize of USD 30,000, and a direct entry into the World Athletics Championship. They award up to the 8th place finish, while the second runner-up receives USD 12000.
India made an early history in the Diamond League of 2024 at Brussels, as this was the first time ever India had two of their athletes in the Diamond League final. Though the 3000 m runner, Avinash Sable, finished 9th in the finals of the event, India pinned most of their hopes on two-time Olympian medalist, Neeraj Chopra.
India’s two-time Olympic champion, Neeraj Chopra, claimed a silver medal at the Paris Olympics after he failed to defend his gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics against Pakistan’s Nadeem, who turned a world record throw to clinch gold.
Neeraj was a champion at the Diamond League in 2022 at Zurich, after which he next took part in the Diamond League Finals of 2023 at Eugene, where he entered as the champion with the 88.44m throw from 2022. This time around, Neeraj finished second behind Jakub Vadlejch with 84.24 m, while 83.80 m was Neeraj’s best that served him the second spot.
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This time around in Brussels, Neeraj impressed with his third throw, as 87.86 m is what nearly clinched the top spot for him again, as he just missed the top spot from Anderson Peters by 1 cm, that is Peters lay, 87.87 m.
Unfortunately for India’s champ, he missed his second consecutive top spot finish despite the best of his efforts, especially this time around a 0.01m difference, which is what refrained him from re-establishing himself as the best in the world.
