World Athletics Championships: Neeraj Chopra vows to give best shot in final, says 'I’ll give my everything'

Ace India athlete Neeraj Chopra has vowed to give his best shot in Sunday’s final of the javelin throw event after securing qualification on Friday. Chopra, defending Olympic champion secured qualification for Sunday’s (August 27) final with a throw of 88.77 meters in the ongoing World Athletics Championships (WAC) in Budapest, Hungary. In qualifying for the final, he also sealed a place at next year’s Olympics in Paris.

Neeraj vows to give best shot

“I had a couple of good throws during my warm-up and I felt confident that I would make it past the first round,” Neeraj Chopra said after qualifying for the final, as quoted by Olympics.com.

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"I have not competed much this year because I wanted to protect myself from injuries ahead of this competition. I’ll give my everything at this year’s world championships final on Sunday," he added.

The Indian star has not completed in many events in 2023 having returned to the circuit in May. He suffered injury setbacks at the tail end of last year that saw him miss the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. With less than a year to go for the Olympics, he is now determined to give his best shot. He landed with a throw of 88.77 meters on Friday, which was better than his Olympic clincher in Tokyo.

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He threw 88.58 meters in 2021 to clinch the gold medal while he now hopes to go one better than his personal best. Currently, Neeraj’s personal best is 88.94 meters which he secured in at Stockholm Diamond League in 2022.

Neeraj won’t be the only representative in Sunday’s final as he will be joined by Manu DP & the veteran Kishore Jena, who also clinched their place with throws of 81.31m and 80.55m respectively.

Pakistan’s Arshad Nadeem and Czech Republic's Jakub Vadlejch have also scored their place in Sunday’s final after throwing in excess of 83 meters. They both were the only other athletes to join Neeraj in securing automatic qualification. Athletes needed to throw at least 83 meters in the qualification to secure automatic qualification.

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