One of the greatest athletes India has ever seen, the mighty, the best, Neeraj Chopra has clinched silver in the javelin throw event at the Paris Olympics 2024 with a season-best performance of 89.45m.
Pakistan’s Arshad Nadeem performed better, setting a new Olympic record of 92.97m to win gold. He became Pakistan’s first individual Olympic gold medallist. Arshad Nadeem surpassed the previous Olympic mark of 90.57 established by Norway’s Andreas Thorkildsen in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Nadeem’s second throw surpassed the Olympic record. The toss undoubtedly put a lot of pressure on Neeraj, which was evident in his performance. Neeraj got only one official throw out of six tries, but it was enough to win the silver medal.
Notably, Grenada’s Anderson Peters won bronze (88.54m).
Neeraj, who won gold at the Tokyo Summer Games three years ago, threw an impressive 89.34 metres in Group B of the men’s javelin throw qualification round at the Paris Olympics on Tuesday.
With this win, Neeraj joins a prestigious club of Indian athletes who have taken home multiple individual Olympic medals. Importantly, Neeraj became the fifth Indian athlete to bag successive individual medals at the Olympics, behind Norman Pritchard, Sushil Kumar, PV Sindhu, and Manu Bhaker.