Neeraj Chopra will make his third appearance at Diamond League Finals as he will eye historic feat in Zurich on Thursday. Chopra who missed out on action at the Commonwealth Games 2022 due to an injury, made a stupendous comeback in his return at Lausanne leg of the Diamond League series and became the first Indian to bag top honours at Diamond League. Its worth mentioning that Chopra, the world silver medallist picked up an injury in the world athletics championship at Eugene and was out of action for one month.
On his return, the Panipat lad hurled the javelin to a distance of 89.08m to clinch top honours at Diamond League in Lausanne to ensure his qualification at Diamond League Finals. Chopra has previously qualified for the Diamond League Finals in 2017 and 2018 finishing 7th and 4th respectively.
Neeraj’s chances
The six man line up will be without world champion Anderson Peters of Grenada who got injured after he was assaulted in his home country inside a boat last month. Chopra will face stern test from Olympic silver medallist Jakub Vadlejch of Czech Republic whom the Indian got better at Lausanne.
While Neeraj is yet to find a throw of over 90 m, the Czech athlete allready has a throw over 90m. However, Chopra has competed against the Czech athlete for four times after Tokyo Olympics and the Indian has managed to beat him every time they met. Vadlejch is still an experienced campaigner having won the Diamond League Final winner in 2016 and 2017 and also has two world championship medals in his kitty.
Starting List
- Julian Weber-Germany
- Jakub Vadlejch- Czech Republic
- Neeraj Chopra
- Patrika Gailums- Latvia
- Leandro Ramos- Portugal
- Curtis Thompson- USA
Timings
The javelin competition of Diamond League Finals will start from 11:50 PM IST on 8 September, 2022
Live streaming and TV broadcaster
Voot mobile application and official website will stream the action live in India, while Sports 18 will telecast the action live on TV.
