Neeraj Chopra vs Arshad Nadeem clash fizzles out; Sachin Yadav records personal best

Four years ago, Neeraj Chopra went to the Olympics in Tokyo as a relative unknown outside Asia. On Thursday evening, he returned to the Japan National Stadium as defending world champion, who had also won Olympic silver in Paris (2024) to follow that unforgettable Tokyo gold. But on a night when the form book was torn to shreds, Neeraj finished a disappointing eighth, with a best throw of 84.03m. India’s best performer was Sachin Yadav, who threw a personal best of 86.27m in the first round to finish fourth.

Trinidad and Tobago’s Keshorn Walcott – Olympic gold medallist at 19 in London (2012) – was the shock winner, hurling the javelin 88.16m in the fourth round after an 87.83m throw in the second had put him top of the pile. Grenada’s Anderson Peters – bidding to join Jan Zelezny, Neeraj’s current coach, as a three-time World Championship gold medallist – took silver with 87.38m. Walcott had never previously finished on the podium at the World Championships.

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The pre-event hype had centred on Neeraj and the man who beat him in last year’s Olympic final, Pakistan’s Arshad Nadeem. But Nadeem, who has had an injury-plagued season, fared even worse, finishing tenth with a best throw of 82.75m. Neeraj started with a throw of 83.65m, and improved that by 38cm in the second round. But that was as good as it got. But the time he fouled his fifth throw, the frustration was writ large on his face. It had been well over half a decade since he missed out on making a final-round throw.