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Neeraj Chopra wins Paris Diamond League title with one big early throw, feels there is still room to improve

Diamond League 2025: On Friday night in Paris, Neeraj Chopra's first throw of 88.16m was enough to beat the field, including a consistent but below-par Weber.

Neeraj Chopra won the Paris Diamond League 2025 with a throw of 88.16m. (Diamond League)Neeraj Chopra Diamond League Final 2025 Live Streaming: Neeraj Chopra will be in action in Zurich on Thursday. (NC Classic)

At some point this year, or maybe at a really big event in the future, Neeraj Chopra will leave an event both satisfied with the distance his javelin travelled in its parabola and the fact that it was sufficient for him to win the event on the day. For now, he’ll have to wait for that. In Doha earlier this year, he crossed 90m for the first time in his career, but called it bittersweet because he was pipped at the finish line by Germany’s Julian Weber. On Friday night in Paris, his first throw of 88.16m was enough to beat the field, including a consistent but below-par Weber. But afterward, he was analyzing his technique with a tinge of disappointment, not completely satisfied with the speed of his run-up and the control of his throwing motion.

“I’m happy with the throw. It was my first throw and it was a good start, but I was hoping for really good throws today,” Neeraj said in the mixed zone later. “My run-up was really fast today. I can’t control my speed, but I’m happy with the result and with first position.”

When it all comes together, it is bound to be glorious, but as such, it was another fruitful international outing for India’s foremost track and field athlete as he clinched his first Diamond League meet win of the season.

At a packed Stade Charléty, not far from Stade de France where he won silver in Paris last year and later spoke about the desire to find those big throws consistently, Neeraj’s first throw perhaps indicated he was in the groove. The arms went up, like they usually do after he knows he has made a good throw, but not for long. An 88+ is no mean feat on any given day, but Neeraj is now targeting 90m+ consistently, so perhaps he tempered his own expectations quickly. He didn’t get close to it for the rest of the event, uncharacteristically fouling three of his six attempts. Weber, meanwhile, registered 81m+ with all his six throws, but even his best mark came with the first attempt of the event at 87.88m.

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Neeraj elaborated that the problem he faced was at the time of release, where he felt he was falling over to the left. “It is a matter of timing because I feel really good during the run-up, but the timing was not so good when I threw. I went quickly left and it was not good. I need to throw to the front, like with the chest and go up with the javelin, but I go too much left. We are working on it,” he said, gesturing to the chesty release he’d like to execute.

“I need some more control when I throw, like on the attack. Still, there are so many things we have to change and I need maybe a strong core and a stronger body for throwing,” he added with a chuckle.

The surprise package of the night was Brazil’s Luiz Mauricio da Silva, who broke his own South American record once more with a monster 86.62m throw that came off his third attempt. But the rest of the field struggled to get past 82m, with two-time world champion Anderson Peters continuing to have a lukewarm start to the season with a best throw of 80.29m and finishing fifth, below Keshorn Walcott.

Neeraj insisted that there is work to be done ahead of his main target of the year – the World Championships in Tokyo. “I will compete in Ostrava after four days on 24 June, so I need some quick recovery. I am very excited for the NC Classic (July 5 in Bengaluru), I feel it’s really something that I did for my country. For the rest of the season, I’m hoping for some more 90m throws because I broke that barrier in Doha, so now I believe I can do some farther throws. But let’s see, it all depends on weather conditions, how the body feels, and all that. The main target is the Tokyo World Championships.”

Vinayakk Mohanarangan is Senior Assistant Editor and is based in New Delhi. ... Read More

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