Neeraj Chopra opened the season with a blistering throw of 88.67m to win the Doha Diamond League on Friday. Although still short of 90 meters at the Suhaim bin Hamad Stadium, Chopra will take heart from the victory in a tough field that featured world champion Anderson Peters and Tokyo Olympics silver medalist Jakub Vadlejch of the Czech Republic.
As Neeraj Chopra opened with 88.67m, he would have been on the back foot to clear the 90m mark. Chopra came after Peters opened the match with a throw of 85.88m, which immediately put the field under pressure.
Neeraj Chopra’s series was 88.67 m, 86.04 m, 85.47, foul, 84.37 m, 86.52 m. Valdejch, who has the leading throw in the season ahead of Chopra, kept everyone on their toes with throws of 88.63 m and 88 .47 m and finished second. Peters finished third with a best throw of 85.88m.
The 25-year-old Chopra started the season with a win against a quality field and will gain confidence for this season’s major competitions – World Cup (August), Asian Games (September).
Chopra exuded confidence in breaking the 90m mark at the Doha meet. In three competitions last year, he cleared 89 m, but each time he failed agonizingly. When he hit his personal best of 89.94m in Stockholm, it looked like it was only a matter of time before he reached the mark.
However, it was his remarkable consistency that separated him from the rest of the field. He regularly exceeded 88 meters in five of the six competitions. At the World Championships in Eugene, he won silver with a similar throw of 88.13m and won his first Diamond League title with a throw of 88.14m. He started the season in a similar vein.
On the eve of his season-opening tournament, Chopra wished he could reach 90m in Doha and settle the debate once and for all. Peters and Vadlejch cleared 90 meters last year in Doha. However, he also mentioned that he will be careful not to injure himself. The big experience for Chopra was the World Championships, where he kept pushing until the end and strained his groin, which forced him to withdraw from the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.
“After that fourth throw at the World Cup, I felt a lot of pain, but I couldn’t stop. Maybe I should have stopped there,” he said. “We have a really long season this year. We are focused on being injury free and having a healthy season. Bas, injuries yes,” he added.
The Diamond League will also be a major event for Bertha Chopra and given the importance he attaches to this major event, he will want to go to the next Diamond League meetings – Lausanne (June 30), Monaco (July 21), Zurich (August 31) before that. , before taking place at Hayward Field in Eugene on September 16. Each meeting offers a prize of $10,000 for the winner, while the champion receives a purse of $30,000.
Before the start of the season, Neeraj Chopra said that he was in better physical condition and frame of mind compared to the beginning of the previous season. “Last year I got really close (to 90m),” he said. “I’m not overly confident, but when you feel good, you can say it. I feel good, I’ve been training well and the belief that it (90m) will happen this time.”
In view of the big season, he is training abroad. With coach Klaus Bartonietz and physio Ishaan Marwa by his side, Chopra trained at Loughborough University in the UK at the end of last year before moving to Potchefstroom in South Africa and the Gloria Sports Arena in Antalya, Turkey this year. He worked on his stamina and endurance and his throwing power. All that hard work paid off in Doha.
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