Mumbai, Aug 29: Olympic champion Neeraj Chopra had to settle for second place in the Diamond League Finals for the third straight year. Germany’s Julian Weber won his first title with two massive 90m-plus throws on Thursday.Weber set the tone with a 91.37m throw in his first attempt and followed it up with a world-leading 91.57m in the second round, his personal best. All five of his legal throws went over 83m, showing complete dominance in the seven-man field.
Chopra had a tough series. The 27-year-old started with 84.35m, then slipped to 82m and a foul. He was third at halfway behind Trinidad and Tobago’s Keshorn Walcott. After two more fouls, Chopra threw 85.01m in the final round to grab second place by just six centimeters.
Walcott finished third, while defending champion Anderson Peters came fourth with 82.06m.
Chopra was not his usual self as he began with 84.35m and then followed it up with 82m and a foul. He was at third spot at the halfway stage, and he fouled his fourth and fifth attempts before coming up with a 85.01m effort in his last throw.
This was not too bad. But we are getting very close to the world championships, so I still need to throw a little bit further. There were a few things that went well, but still, there were the things which did not go that well,” Chopra said after the event.
“In the last attempt, I still managed to throw 85. But I am very happy for Julian today – he managed to throw really far, and to show 91m was really good. We will see in three weeks.
“I still need to train a little bit. In this sport, we do not know. It depends on the day.”
Chopra said everything “will be different” in Tokyo during the World Championships (September 13-21).
“Julian, he is a good friend of mine and I am always happy when he is doing well and we push each other. There will be some friends from India coming to cheer for me in Tokyo.
I have some friends who live there. At major championships, the gold is more important than the far throws. So I will try my best to win the medal.”
Weber’s effort was also his third 90m-plus throw of the season as well as his career. He had breached the coveted 90m mark with a 91.06m throw while winning the Doha DL title on May 16.
Chopra also breached the 90m mark for the first time in Doha with a throw of 90.23m but finished second behind Weber.
Chopra will now head to Tokyo for next month’s World Championships as the defending champion.
Weber 3-1 against Chopra in head-to-head this season.
With Thursday’s title, Weber extended head-to-head record against Chopra to 3-1 this season. The German had earlier beaten Chopra to second place in Doha DL in May and ORLEN Janusz Kusocinski Memorial event in Chorzow, Poland, the same month.
Chopra won in Paris DL in June with Weber finishing second.
However, Chopra leads Weber in overall head-to-head record by a wide margin of 15-5 in competitions involving the duo since 2016.
For the record, Chopra had not finished outside second place since June 2021.
He had skipped the Silesia and Brussels legs of DL on August 16 and August 22 respectively, but qualified for the Finals here in fourth spot with 15 points. The top six in the points table from the four meetings qualify for the Finals here.
There were four Diamond League meetings which featured men’s javelin throw, and Chopra competed in only two — in Doha in May and Paris in June. He had finished second in Doha and won the title in Paris.
Chopra’s last event was the NC Classic in Bengaluru on July 5 which he hosted and won with a throw of 86.18m.