Indian player Neeraj Chopra topped the qualification round in the Tokyo Olympics 2020 by making his fans feel proud. Detailed into the javelin throw final on Wednesday and the 23-year-old performed gracefully for sure. when his first throw was 86.65 m which was enough as it went past the automatic qualification standard that is set at 83.50 m. Only 6 men crossed that and the overall ranking at the end of the qualification round had a strange look with Neeraj on the top of the board.
He was next followed by Johannes Vetter whose start was a bit filled with struggles before making the cut with his last round throw of 85.64 m. followed by him was Pakistan’s Arshad Nadeem with a throw of 85.16 m as it was the very first time in the history of Pakistan that a Pakistan athlete was entering into the Olympic finals in athletics. Neeraj has surely been an Asian games champion and is also the twelfth Indian in athletics and the first-ever javelin throw in the entire history of India to enter an Olympic final round.
Along with that, he is also the very first person to finish on top of the qualification round. Another Indian player and also an ancient silver medal holder Shivpal Singh was in the fray who also has a personal best of 86.23 m and was around 10 meters behind that as he finished 12th in his group and 27th overall with 76.4 m. Well, among all the others only the top 12 to the final round, and Vetter who had a series of 90 m + throws in this season was able to manage only 82.04 and 82.08 in his first two throws. Initially, he was in danger of getting eliminated too soon but he came back to track with the big one throw in the third.
Well talking about other players, Marcin Krukowski from Poland had 74.65 m and Trinidad and Tobago’s 2012 London Olympic champion Gaston Walcott had 7 9.33 m. They both had gone over 89 m this season and were on the second and the third spot respectively in the year’s wordlist. However, both of the talented players did not make it to the final round and were out in the qualification round itself.
Anderson Peters with 80.42 m who also was Grenada’s 2019 world champion did not make it to the finals along with Latvia’s Gatis Cakss with 78.73 m who was this year’s number 4th in the position. As many more talented players from different countries did not make it to the finals, the chances for Neeraj to get the medal for the country are now high for sure. The final round for the javelin throw is all that on August 7 and many of his fans and the entire country are looking forward to his performance on the big day.
