Neeraj Chopra Recovers From Poor Start To Produce Season-Best Throw In Last Attempt, Wins Silver In Lausanne Diamond League 2024
Neeraj Chopra In Lausanne Diamond League: The Indian javelin thrower hovered around the 82-83 metre mark for much of the event before breaching the 85-m mark twice in final two attempts to win silver.
Neeraj Chopra In Lausanne Diamond League 2024: India's athletics poster boy Neeraj Chopra has done it again. For much of the men's javelin throw event in the Lausanne Diamond League 2024, it looked like Neeraj would go medalless. But despite hovering around the 82-83 metre mark for much of the competition, Neeraj produced two of his best throws in his last two attemts, including a season best 89.45 metres in his final attempt to go past Germany's Julian Weber and take the second position. Grenada's Anderson Peters bagged the gold medal with a best throw of 90.61 metres- to set a new meet record.
Notably, exactly a fortnight ago, Neeraj had bagged the silver medal in the men's javelin throw event of Paris Olympics 2024. Neeraj had his then season-best throw of 89.45 metres in the French capital, which was the second best of his career till then which is now pushed to number three, however, it was only good enough for him to bag the second place with Pakistan's Arshad Nadeem setting a new Olympic record with a giant throw of 92.97 metres.
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While Arshad was not part of the Javelin Throw event in Lausanne Diamond League 2024, Peters who had bagged the bronze in Paris Olympics and Neeraj remained on the podium with Weber joining them after missing out in the French capital with a best throw of 87.08m metres.
Anderson Peters' Best Throw Also Came In Final Attempt
As far as Anderson Peters' is concerned, his best throw also came in the final attempt. Before the last round, where only top 3 throwers are allowed a chance, Peters was leading by 88.49metres.
Had Peters not managed to better than in his final attempt, Neeraj's season best throw, which bettered his Paris Olympics 2024-medal winning throw by 4 centimetres, would have gone on to make a hat-trick, winning his third gold medal in a row in the competition after coming first in 2022 and 2023.