CHENNAI: A couple of days ahead of the Doha Diamond League, Neeraj Chopra’s coach, Klaus Bartonietz, had said that first event of the season would always be tricky. The Olympic and world champion Neeraj, the world No 1 thrower, started the proceedings with a foul. It seemed a minor glitch in his matrix before he threw 84.93m in his second attempt. Conditions too were windy and the athletes were throwing with the wind unlike last year.
Yet, for a man who dwells on consistency and hard work, the distance would not have been to his liking. But considering it is the first competition of the year, it can be brushed aside as a blip on his consistency chart. After coming back from his elbow injury, consistency had been the 26-year-old’s hallmark. Neeraj himself had admitted during the pre-event presser in Doha that he also considers this as his strength, even more than his eagerness to breach the 90m mark.
No wonder he looked glum even after throwing 86.24m in his third attempt. Neeraj is so used to winning that even a second-place finish is not something he cherishes. May be considering it as a season opener, he would take it. And as he gets closer to Paris, he can find out the flaws and rectify it. His final attempt was the best. He touched 88.36m but finished behind Jakub Vadlejch (88.38m). However, Neeraj’s second throw was not his best of the night; that came in his third attempt when he threw 86.24m to jump to second in the leaderboard behind Czech Republic’s Vadlejch, who opened with 85.87m and was perched atop of the standing. Former world champion, Grenada’s Anderson Peters, was behind Vadlejch with a throw of 85.75m after R2. Vadlejch, who crossed the 90m-mark two seasons ago, threw a monstrous 88.38m to remain in the lead.
Kishore Jena, who stunned the javelin world with a sixth-place finish at the Worlds in Budapest last year, managed a modest 75.72m and 76.31 before the field was cut to eight. The efforts were nothing near his personal best of 87.54m. Finland’s Oliver Halendar was placed fourth.