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Neeraj Chopra, the Tokyo Olympic gold medalist, qualified for the finals of the Diamond League 2024. The prestigious tournament will be played for two days, i.e., September 14 and September 15 in Brussels. During the One-Day meets in Doha and Lausanne, the 26-year-old accumulated 14 points in his two-second place finishes. Notably, Chopra skipped the last series in Zurich which was played on Thursday, September 5. Meanwhile, the two-time Olympic medalist was only two points behind Czechia’s Jakub Valdejch. On the other hand, Grenada’s Anderson Peters and Germany’s Julian Weber scored 29 and 21 points respectively.
Peters went past Weber during the Zurich meet, which was skipped by Chopra. The Haryana-player spoke about the groin injury which has been troubling him since ahead of the Paris Olympics 2024. Chopra secured silver medal in the Olympics, bested by Pakistan’s Arshad Nadeem, who finished 92.97 in the showpiece event. After bagging the silver medal, Chopra participated in the Lausanne leg of Diamond League and finished second. Anderson Peters, who bagged a bronze medal in the Paris Olympics, finished first in the Lausanne leg of Diamond League.
My goal is to become fit and throw as far as I can: Neeraj Chopra
Last month, Chopra mentioned that the groin injury has been troubling him and he was looking forward to achieving 100 percent fitness. He added that he will be technically better and try to throw as far as he can. Chopra was expected to breach the 90-meter mark in the 2024 Olympics but the groin injury stopped him doing so. He finished with a distance of 89.45 meters.
Earlier, Neeraj had revealed that he plans to get 100% fit and then work on his technicalities to do better and throw far. He said, "First goal is to go to the doctor and make my groin 100 percent fit and also I will be technically better and try to throw far again.” Chopra had won the 2022 Diamond League final, before he finished runners-up as Jakub Valdejch claimed the title in the next edition.
