Neeraj Chopra Biography

Neeraj Chopra dominated the national youth level scene, and he even won several international events. His real fame came when he won the gold medal at IAAF World U20 Championships (Bydgoszcz, Poland (2016)) with a record 86.48m, which still stands in the under-20 category. This made him the first Indian track and field athlete to be a world champion and have a world record to his name. 

The Rio 2016 men’s javelin throw qualifying mark was 83.00m, and Neeraj could have qualified for his first Olympic Games. His injuries had stood in the way of his Rio qualification attempt.

In 2017, Neeraj became the Asian champion. He also won gold at the Commonwealth Games held at Gold Coast in 2018 and the Asian Games in Jakarta in the same year. 

An elbow injury that needed surgery prevented Chopra from participating in the world championships in 2019, and he was out of competition for nearly 16 months. As soon as he was back, Neeraj qualified for Tokyo 2020 at the meet held in Potchefstroom, South Africa, in January 2020. 

Post his Tokyo 2020 victory, in 2022. He became the first Indian to win a silver medal at the World Athletics Championships held in Oregon. While the reigning champion and gold winner Anderson Peters of Grenada threw to a distance of 90.54m, Neeraj covered 88.31m. This silver medal was India’s second at the world level, and the first was a bronze won by Anju Bobby George (long jump) at the Paris world championships in 2003. 

Chopra has held the men’s javelin national record since 2016 till date. His current national record is 89.94m (Stockholm Diamond League 2022).