Newly crowned Asian champion Neeraj Chopra today missed on a chance to secure a bronze medal competing against the javelin heavyweights in Diamond League Final.
Just three days after winning the Asian games gold medal, Neeraj, 20, headed to Zurich to participate in the Diamond League Series Finale.
Till the last round, Chopra hung at third position with a throw of 85.73m and was looking a favourite for a bronze but the party was spoiled by Olympic champion Thomas Rohler of Germany, who came up with a throw of 85.76m in his last attempt to push Neeraj at fourth position.
Neeraj will get USD 6000 for his efforts.
Germany’s Andreas Hofmann earned the gold medal with an enormous throw of 91.44m. Estonia’s Magnus Kirt took silver with a throw of 87.57m.
The second Final will be held in Brussels today which will see competition in another 16 sets of events.
Germany’s trio of Johannes Vetter, Thomas Rohler and Andreas Hofmann were the favourites to win the event but world champion Vetter pulled out of the event that brought Rohler to be the favourite to claim the top honour. However, it was Hofmann who was supreme on the day and clinched the gold to challenge other two senior countrymen for future competition.
Neeraj’s performance in Diamond League
He took part in three Diamond League Series legs. He finished fourth in Doha, sixth in Eugene and fifth in Rabat. He was not part of Birmingham leg due to his participation in Asian Games.
He qualified for the finals as sixth best in terms of points and he has surely done more than what his seedings suggest.
