Name: Neeraj Chopra. Throws: 83.65m, 84.05m, X, 82.86m, X. Finish: Eighth.
As a sequence of words and numbers, that is the most incongruous Indian sport has seen for a long, long time. It's just not something we're used to reading. Normally, Neeraj Chopra enters an event; Neeraj Chopra walks away with a medal -- that is one of the only guarantees in Indian sport. High 80s, a 90, mid 80s, whatever mark needs to be hit, he'll hit it and get on that podium. That's just how it is.
Well, that's how it was. For at the 2025 World Championships in Tokyo, he didn't hit his marks, and he isn't walking away with a medal. A run of 26 top two finishes ends here. For the first time since 2018, Neeraj Chopra doesn't make the podium of an event he took part in.
Seven years of dominance and winning and podiums and glittering silverware... and the run's ended at the venue where the dream began.
On Wednesday, Neeraj had gone past the auto-qualification mark of 84.50m to do his trademark one-and-done finish to qualifying, but something was off. The run-up lacked a bit of oomph, the rotation at the point of release looked too far too to the left, and somehow, he didn't look the lean-and-mean machine he usually is at these big events.
On Thursday, that feeling intensified. He seemed to be a bundle of nerves, bouncing around and grimacing even before a throw was thrown, exuding the kind of anxious energy we'd never seen come off him before. He started poorly, the body falling to the left, following a javelin that landed well short of where it usually lands and that was a sign of things to come. After the first two throws, he was eighth and he never improved either mark or position. Needing at least an 85.54m on his fifth throw just to make it to the final round (6), and with the rain pelting down, he didn't even come close, falling and rolling over the line. As he ripped aside the two belts he'd wrapped around his waist, he let out a primal yell: the frustration and disbelief boiling over.
Speaking to journalists after the event, Neeraj confirmed that feeling, while explaining why he'd needed two belts -- he'd got a back sprain on September 4 (while throwing a shot put behind him in training) that meant he hadn't trained properly for two weeks leading up to the Championships. "It's not an excuse," he emphasised, but that was the reason he was falling away at the release point, "to save my back, I was leaning to the left too much."
Elsewhere, around him, it was pure chaos. Olympic champion Arshad Nadeem finished tenth with a best of 84.03m, looking very rusty and nowhere near the kind of form that saw him break Paris last year. World leader Julian Weber never hit his stride and finished fifth with a best of 86.11m: the three early favourites not troubling the leaders at any point.
Beating Weber to fourth was the other Indian in the competition, Sachin Yadav, who hit a new personal best of 86.27m -- he's now the first Indian to finish above Neeraj in any event anywhere since August 2014, when a 16-year-old Neeraj finished eighth in the Federation Cup.
Sachin Yadav missed the bronze medal by 40cm in the men's javelin final ��
3rd place: Curtis Thompson (86.67m) ����
4th place: Sachin Yadav (86.27m) ����A remarkable performance from the emerging Indian star �� pic.twitter.com/IzD8G7fhtn
- ESPN India (@ESPNIndia) September 18, 2025
It'll be buried a bit in the shock of Neeraj's defeat, like in this piece, but Sachin's rise has been steady, if not spectacular. A big man at 6'5" and 100+ kg, Sachin's technique is very similar to Nadeem's, using the breadth of his shoulders much more than any explosive energy generated from a dynamic runup. He'd finished second to Nadeem at the Asian Athletics Championships in May this year, finished fourth in the inaugural Neeraj Chopra Classic in August and won the Federation Cup in April. A man of few words, he's put his head down and worked hard on his technique. On World Championship debut, the 23-year-old from Khekra, Uttar Pradesh showed a Neeraj-esque sense of occasion to raise his game and showcase just how much work he'd put in.
Meanwhile, the podium above him had an unprecedented look to it, an all-Americas top three that absolutely no one saw coming. Curtis Thompson won bronze with 86.67m, the United States' first medal in this event since 2007 and just their third ever. Two-time champion Anderson Peters dug in hard to hit 87.38m and take silver, putting behind him an indifferent year so far. Coached now by Klaus Bartonietz, Neeraj's former longtime coach, Keshorn Walcott rewound time to 2012 -- the last time he'd won a big event (Olympic gold by the by) -- to take a remarkable gold at 88.16m.
Neeraj watched all of it unfold with his hands on his hips, staring into the distance, trying to understand what had just happened. Looking back, those numbers the eventual medalists hit will grate Neeraj as much as the finish. The high 80s are where he's made his name, the kind of range which he has always hit on the big occasions. He had passed 90m for the first time ever earlier this year (90.23m in May) and he'd have thought it would be onwards and upwards from there. That he fell away so sharply, that his technique failed him when he needed it most will eat at him, injury or not.
In the mixed zone, he was his usual statesman self, remarkably composed and reflective, saying he hadn't spoken of the sprain before because he didn't want attention directed to it, repeating that "this is sports, anything can happen," stressing on the importance of accepting defeat and learning from it, admiring the dedication of Walcott, the brilliance of Sachin and the inexorable rise of Indian javelin.
But you could sense the underlying emotion: it's just not something he's used to seeing happen... and that will prove his greatest test yet. For the first time since becoming Olympic Champion in this very Tokyo National Stadium in 2021, Neeraj will walk away from a season with a point to prove, with a need to show the world that a dip in performance was just a fluke, a one-off. With the likes of Sachin snapping at his heels domestically and the likes of Walcott and Peters looking back to their best, Neeraj will need find his very best to retain his place on the world athletics plinth.
If we know anything, though, it's that he'll certainly give it a go. While he was speaking in the mixed zone, his good friend Weber walked past him and patted him on the back. "'Comeback', he said," he told the reporters. "Aana toh padega hi, aisa kaam chalega nahin na [Of course, I will have to comeback, this won't do, no]."