As Neeraj Chopra starts his 2024 season at Doha Diamond League, breaching 90m mark shouldn't be only focus

After a gap of six months, India’s only track-and-field Olympic and world champion, Neeraj Chopra, will embark on what will be the toughest season of his career as a javelin thrower. The 26-year-old begins his 2024 campaign with the Doha Diamond League where he won last year with a 88.67m throw.

A winning start will be crucial as he looks to reach the season-ending finals and retain the title he won in 2022 before narrowly missing out on the gold last season with a silver-medal finish . But the Doha event assumes even more importance when you consider the fact that it’s an Olympics year.

In 2021, Neeraj was a junior world champion when he went on to become the first Olympic gold medallist  for India in athletics.

In 2022, he became the first Indian to win the Diamond League gold.

In 2023, he was the first Indian to win the top spot at the World Championships.

Now comes the ultimate challenge.

The 2024 season is going to be about becoming the first individual athlete from India to defend his gold medal at the Olympics – Paris 2024 .

Looking at his record, one mustn’t fuss much about his chances.

For someone who has managed to improve every year, evolve and make history, defending the Olympic gold doesn’t seem that big a deal. After all, it’s his elite talent and mentality that has continuously helped the javelin giant to put the spotlight on Indian athletics. There’s one thing that Neeraj hasn’t managed so far – hitting the 90m mark. He has a personal best of 89.94m , which is also the national record.

In Doha, Neeraj will be up against former world champion Anderson Peters of Grenada and three-time Diamond League winner and Tokyo silver medallist Jakub Vadlejch.

Vadlejch has already managed 87m this season and could be the biggest challenger as five of the 10 competitors in Doha are still to start their season.

The Czech is also going to benefit from the fact that he hit his personal best of 90.88m in Doha in 2022. The same year Peters, who beat Neeraj for Worlds gold in 2022, managed a whopping 93.07m at the Doha Diamond League.

The wind assistance at the Qatar Sports Club has often created favourable conditions for the javelin throwers so it could be the same this time.

Another factor that makes 90m even more valuable is the fact that Germany’s Max Dehning has been touching that coveted mark for fun recently.

In February this year, he became the youngest (19) to breach the 90m mark at the German Winter Throwing Championships 2024, and qualified for the Olympics. Neeraj will be meeting Dehning at the Paavo Nurmi Games in Finland next month and that will be quite a contest to look at. But in all honesty, while breaching the 90m mark is going to become a must for the Indian star, the best way to deal with the upcoming challenges is to stay true to what he has been doing all this while.

The secret of Neeraj’s success is not humungous throws but his consistency and rhythm on competition days.

Last year he won the Worlds gold with just his second throw which was 88.17m. This is not to say that he will win the upcoming events as well without touching the 90m mark but if he stays fit and finds his rhythm, his record is proof that can be enough.

“I will compete with Max at the Paavo Nurmi games. I’ve never competed with him before. He went from throwing 79m straight into 90m. He skipped the 80m page completely. It will be fun to compete with him. When I competed at the Tokyo Olympics and also at last year’s world championships, many athletes had throws over 90m. So it’s not a new thing to compete against people who have thrown that distance,” Neeraj had said during an online interaction last month.

“What matters is what you can throw on that day. I am excited to get a chance to compete against them. The more they throw in competition, the more fun it becomes. When we are competing together, the main factor that determines the winner is who handles the situation on that day better than the others.”

That’s the secret, be the best at handling the situation and the rest will follow.

Kishore Jena also in focus

Eyes will also be on Kishore Jena who will be making his Diamond League debut. The Odia athlete has a personal best of 87.54m which helped him win the silver medal at the 2023 Asian Games. Indian athletics fraternity will be rooting for him to secure a top-three spot in Doha.

Men’s javelin throw start list

Neeraj Chopra (India)
Genki Dean (Japan)
Oliver Helander (Finland)
Kishore Jena (India)
Andrian Mardare (Moldova)
Edis Matusevicius (Lithuania)
Anderson Peters (Grenada)
Curtis Thompson (USA)
Jakub Vadlejch (Czech Republic)
Julius Yego (Kenya)

Men’s javelin throw start time and date

The event will take place on 10 May and is expected to start at 10.12 PM IST.

Men’s javelin throw live streaming

The Doha Diamond League will be live-streamed on JioCinema. The broadcast will be available on the Sports18 TV channel.