Neeraj Chopra creates HISTORY, clinches India's second-ever medal at World Athletics Championships with a silver

Neeraj Chopra writes history of sorts as this is India's only second medal at the World Championships, the first being a bronze won by Anju Bobby George in 2003 in women's long jump.

Source: Twitter

India's Olympic champion in men's javelin throw Neeraj Chopra came back after a series of poor throws in the World Athletics Championships final to clinch a silver medal on July 23 (Saturday) at Oregon. Neeraj wrote history of sorts as this is India's only second medal at the World Championships, the first being a bronze won by Anju Bobby George in 2003 in women's long jump. But the way Neeraj started off, it appeared he won't be able to medal at the worlds. He seemed to be under extreme pressure with more than a billion eyes on him in the final but the Haryana-born athlete managed to handle the nerves and came backs strongly. 

How things fared for Neeraj at the final?   

He started off with a no throw and in the second attempt, he could only throw a distance of 82.39, one of his poorest throws this season. In the third attempt, Neeraj came back with a much better throw of 86.37m. After the third attempt, he looked disappointed with himself. By the third attempt, Anderson Peters had already gone past 90m mark twice and Olympics silver medallist Jakub Vadlejch and Julian Weber were already ahead of the Indian Olympic champion. 

It seemed Neeraj will have his poorest display with the javelin this season at biggest stage so far - the final of the World Championships. Not medalling would have been toto swallow for the Olympics gold medallist as he was looking to clinch India's second-ever medal in the Championships. The 24-year-old has done everything right in the alst 7 months to prepare for the world finals and he would have been hurting by performing below the standards set by him. But it was not to be as Neeraj threw 88.13m in the fourth attempt to ensure he was winning the silver. In the end, he finished at 2nd spot only with gold going to Anderson Peters and bronze to Vadlejch.

Silver medal position at 88.13m
Credit : Peacock network pic.twitter.com/mCXArPcxdD — Indian Javelin (@IndianJavelin) July 24, 2022

The silver medal will bring some respite for Indian champion. He will be gutted to miss the gold medal as well as the 90m mark but he should be proud of the fact that he made history for India with the silver medal. 

Another Indian in the final, Rohit Yadav, finished 10th on his World Championships debut.