The Paris Olympics Silver Medalist Neeraj Chopra finished second in the Lausanne Diamond League by covering 89.49m in his 6th and final throw at the event on Thursday. Grenada's Anderson Peters with his 90.61m final throw and Germany's Julian Weber with a best throw of 88.37m secured first and third spots respectively.
This was Chopra's best throw of the season and his second-best ever. In Paris, he covered 89.45m.
He was lying in fourth position till the end of the fourth round of throws till he managed to cover 85.58m in his fifth throw to burst into the top three and proceed to the Diamond League 2024 final, slated to be held in Brussels next month.
The fourth spot was secured by Artur Felfner of Ukraine, whose best throw was 83.38m.
Contrarily, while earlier in the Paris Olympics, though Chopra could not win gold, he at least created some history for India by becoming the second male and third overall to win back-to-back medals in the Olympics after wrestler Sushil Kumar, who had won a bronze and silver in the 2008 and 2012 Games respectively. P.V. Sindhu being the other Indian to achieve this feat of winning medals in successive Olympics – she won a silver in 2016 at Rio and bronze in Tokyo 2020.
The 89.45m that Chopra hurled the javelin to in Paris was an improvement on the 87.58m that bagged him the gold medal in Tokyo, but all that did not prove enough for the reigning World Champion and Diamond League final winner as Pakistan's Arshad Nadeem, his good friend in the sport, upstaged him to set the Olympic record and win the gold medal with a monster heave of 92.97m.
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