Neeraj set to light up the Worlds again

bombay: mould your bear in mind plump for to the previous domain Athletics Championships two years ago in Budapest and what stood out from an Indian viewpoint.

Sure, there was Neeraj Chopra and his javelin gold that continued to set unparalleled benchmarks for athletics in the country. But there was also the men’s 4x400m relay team and their Asian record setting, final berth seizing exploits that, for those fleeting few days, captured the attention of Indian sports followers.

As track and field’s global showpiece event begins in Tokyo from Saturday, Indian athletes would do well to deliver similar punching-above-the-weight moments to go with the hefty spotlight on their star poster boy and sole world champion.

In Budapest, apart from Chopra’s gold, the relay team broke the Asian record in qualification and shone for a fifth-place final finish. Steeplechaser Parul Chaudhary ran her personal best in qualification and signed off 11th in the final with a new national record. Ajay Kumar Saroj also set a new personal best in the 1500m heat.

Of the 14 men and five women from India that have made the cut for Tokyo, it remains to be seen how many can push their own envelope at the big stage.

On Saturday the focus will be on India’s race walkers, with Ram Baboo, Sandeep Kumar and Priyanka Goswami featuring on the opening day’s 35km race walk medal event.

As the week progresses, however, the focus will well and truly shift to Chopra, and his band of four Indians in javelin.

The last time Chopra set foot in Tokyo for a marquee event, he walked away as the first Indian Olympic champion in track and field four years ago at the Games. The last time he set foot in the World Championships, he walked away as the first Asian holder of the men’s world javelin title.

The last time he set foot in a global high-stakes competition as the defending champion, he walked away as the silver medallist who lost his throne to Pakistan’s Arshard Nadeem at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

The Indian has another big title to defend in Tokyo, this time with the 90m monkey off his back. Yet as Chopra, in the company of world record holder Jan Zelezny as coach, raised his own bar this season, so have some others.

Chopra broke the long-awaited 90m threshold early in the season, throwing 90.23m at the Doha Diamond League. And yet, in what has been a reflection of this year’s javelin story, it wasn’t enough for a first-place finish. That mammoth throw from Chopra is only third in the list of best throws this season, behind Germany’s Julian Weber and Brazil’s Luiz da Silva going even further.

It was Weber who beat Chopra in Doha with a throw of 91.06m. It was Weber who beat Chopra with two more 91m-plus throws in the Diamond League Final in Zurich last month. It will be Weber again who will stand as the most daunting challenger to Chopra’s crown in Tokyo. There’s also, of course, Olympic champion and 2023 Worlds’ silver medallist Nadeem who tends to have a big throw up his sleeve in big competitions.

The javelin event (qualification on Wednesday and final on Thursday) featuring Chopra, Weber and Nadeem promises to be a cracking contest.

As also a few others featuring the world’s top track and field stars.

Can American sprinter Noah Lyles repeat his Budapest triple gold feat and make a statement after his 200m Paris Games run that only fetched a bronze?

Can Swede pole vaulter Armand Duplantis, who has bettered his own world record three times already this year, push a centimetre further than his 6.29m in Tokyo given he remains in competition with himself for a third straight gold at the Worlds?

Can Duplantis’s fellow world record holders, the likes of Faith Kipyegon (1500m), Karsten Warholm (400m hurdles), Yulimar Rojas (triple jump), Ryan Crouser (shot put) and Yaroslava Mahuchikh (high jump), also hold their thrones in Tokyo?

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