Neeraj Chopra won the Doha leg of the Diamond League with a throw of 88.67 m on Friday to mark his return to competition in 2023.
He won by a very small margin as Czech Republic's Jakub Vadlejch finished second with a throw of 88.63m, just four centimeters short of Chopra's mark. World Champion Andersen Peters finished third with a best throw of 85.88m.
Chopra, the reigning Diamond League champion (he won the grand finale in September last year), started big as he tends to on most big occasions. Throwing with his hair tied back in that trademark headband, Chopra hurled himself to the floor on his first throw, hitting a world-leading (this season) 88.67m in his first go. That was a mark that no one then crossed: and he was celebrated loudly by the number of Indians in the Doha crowd.
These were how Chopra's six throws went:
88.67m
86.04m
85.64m
Foul
84.37m
86.52m
This win marks a good start to an important year for Chopra in which he will look to defend his Asian Games gold and Diamond League trophy along with looking to improve on his silver at the World Championships.
Huge start for #NeerajChopra, who hits 88.67m with his first throw at the #DohaDL. It's a WORLD LEAD! ⚡ #DiamondLeague #CraftingVictories ���� pic.twitter.com/dwIgXbuDQk
- Inspire Institute of Sport (@IIS_Vijayanagar) May 5, 2023
Earlier, in a press conference on Thursday, he had spoken about how Doha is a stadium that is conducive to 90m throws, a mark he has been hunting for the past two years. He had already expressed how hitting the mark was one of his targets for the year - he had hit a personal best of 89.94 last year. This stadium, after all, saw Peters hit a massive 93.07 in this same event last year, which Chopra had missed due to injury. On Friday, though, the arena seemed to be experiencing a stiff headwind and the range of the throws were considerably lower than last year (Vadlejch had, in fact, hit 90.88m to win second here in 2022).
The Doha leg is the first of 14 single-day legs in the Diamond League, which culminates in the season-ending finale in September in Eugene, USA.
Meanwhile, in the triple jump event (only other event which saw Indian participation), India's Eldhose Paul finished 10th with a best jump of 15.84m, well below his personal best. The event was won by Portugal's Pedro Pichardo with a best jump of 17.91m.