FILE - “I was happy with the 85m throw [in Doha Diamond League] because I wasn’t throwing that far in practice either,” said Neeraj Chopra. | Photo Credit: AP

Fourth place is an unfamiliar position for Neeraj Chopra to find himself in. The 28-year-old was getting his season underway at the Doha Diamond League after a nearly nine-month injury layoff and registered a best throw of 85.69m to finish behind Sri Lanka’s Rumesh Tharanga, Grenada’s Anderson Peters and Curtis Thompson of the USA.

It was the first time since he first took part in a Diamond League competition – in Stockholm in 2022 – that Neeraj hadn’t finished inside the top two. At any other point in time, the former World and Olympic champion might have been disappointed with his performance. Not at Doha though.

“I didn’t push myself too hard in the Diamond League. I was happy with the 85m throw because I wasn’t throwing that far in practice either. I knew what situation I was in, what injury I had come back from. If I had been in fourth or third earlier, I would have never accepted it. I would have never accepted even an 85m throw. But now I knew what situation I was in. I know had to move forward step by step,” he told reporters on the sidelines of the Indian Athletics Awards in New Delhi.

Injuries aren’t strangers to Neeraj. “ Ek kahavat hai ki chot (injuries) athlete ke gehne jaise hain (There’s a saying injuries are the jewels of athletes.),” he says. But even so, the nature of injuries he found himself dealing with towards the end of last year caused him to reassess his competition calendar.

“I’ve dealt with injuries before. But this time, there was not just one injury; there were two or three. Like, I had an injury to my Achilles tendon in my blocking leg. There was an injury to my back. There were also issues with my shoulder and elbow. I’ve also been dealing with a groin injury for a long time (Since before 2018). Something or the other has been happening for a long time. I thought calmly that I have to rehab first. I have to start throwing slowly. It’s not like I have to start throwing in a hurry,” he says.

The competition in Doha in the second half of June is the latest Neeraj has ever started a season. “Normally, I start throwing in January or February. But this time I started throwing in May. I needed some time to recover completely. The good thing is that I am coming back to training and I am out of injury,” he says.

One of Neeraj’s goals was to meet the qualification standard of 82.61m set by the AFI for selection to the Commonwealth Games team. The Games in Glasgow remain a priority as do the Asian Games in Japan a couple of months later. Any competition between them will only be viewed as preparation and anything beyond that will be a bonus.

“The main target is the CWG. I’m still doing some preparation and training, so not sure if I’m going to take part in anything before that. After that, there are some Diamond Leagues and Asian Games. The biggest event this year is the World Athletic Challenge, but it has a ranking system. If I qualify for that competition naturally, it’s fine, but I won’t push myself,” he says.

Although there are some major competitions to prepare for, Neeraj isn’t putting undue pressure on himself and is indeed even doing a bit of experimentation. He’s ended his partnership with coach and world record holder Jan Zelezny and started training with Jaiveer Singh, with whom he began his javelin career as a teenager.

“I’m happy working with Jaiveer. I’ve worked with many international coaches, and if you’ve worked with Jan Zelezny, you can’t say there’s any other international coach left to work with. I felt it was best to work with Jaiveer. There is a comfort level between the two of us and I also wanted to work on my own thoughts and ideas about training,” he says.

It’s a decision that hasn’t drawn universal approval. It would have been a bold decision to train with an unheralded Indian coach at any point of time. And right now, the international javelin scene is perhaps at it’s most competitive yet. At the Commonwealth Games, apart from Neeraj himself, there will likely be four athletes who have thrown the javelin over 90m.

The latest in that club is Sri Lanka’s Rumesh Tharanga. The 23-year-old is the form athlete this season and has won two Diamond League competitions with a world leading throw of 92.62m at the Golden Gala Classic in Rome earlier this month.

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There’s only appreciation from Neeraj. “Rumesh is very talented. I met him last year, and I thought he would throw well. It’s good to see that the competition is increasing in South Asia. I was saying that the Commonwealth Games and Asian Games are going to be equally tough, like the World Championships and the Olympics. It’s good for the Javelin community that Javelin is getting attention. So this is a very good thing, and new talents will come in the future. Rumesh is also a new talent and he is very young so he will do very well,” he says.

But even as the field gets ever more challenging, Neeraj continues to believe in himself. He isn’t quite back at his best but he knows what he’s capable of. “My body is better. It’s too early to say whether the body is back to the old Neeraj but It’s slowly getting there,” he says

Published on Jun 21, 2026