Updated 24 June 2025 at 23:50 IST
Neeraj Chopra is nicknamed India's ‘golden boy’ for a reason - the star javelin thrower has made it a habit to finish atop the podium whenever he gets the chance and that continued when he competed in the Ostrava Golden Spike event on Tuesday (June 24). Chopra managed to win the event despite not throwing at anywhere near his best in the athletics meet, as an 85.29m throw was enough to get him the top spot.
Neeraj finished ahead of Douw Smit of South Africa and old rival Anderson Peters from Granada, who was far from his usual best at this particular athletics meet. It was Neeraj's second straight win after the Paris Diamond League 2025 event win.
Neeraj came out of the blocks slow as his first throw was something of a tune-up and still landed at a respectable 83.45m.
He then followed that up with an 85.29m throw that turned out to be good enough to win him the title altogether.
Neeraj managed to land 82.17 on his third attempt and then followed that up with an 81.01m throw but it was his second throw that did the job in the end.
His final throw was a foul but it did not matter as neither Smit nor Peters were able to overcome his second effort and thus it was the Indian who claimed the title.
The result meant that Neeraj won his second event in as many weeks and also continued his recent good run of form that saw him breach the coveted 90m mark for the first time in his career.
He did that at Doha and admitted afterwards that he was glad not to be questioned about that anymore and that it felt like he had gotten a huge monkey off his back.
It does appear as if Neeraj is now throwing with more freedom and one hopes he can keep the good form going till the end of the season.
Published 24 June 2025 at 23:50 IST