Rupa
Sports Ministry has announced that India’s golden boy Neeraj Chopra will lead India’s 28-member team in the upcoming World Athletics Championships commencing from August 19 in Hungary’s capital city Budapest, adding later that the participants have already reached the venue to get accustomed to the weather.
Surprisingly, the announcement has come from the Sports Ministry instead of AFI (Athletics Federation of India).
Chopra, who won a Gold in the javelin throw in the 2021 Olympics, is a defending Diamond League champion. The 25-year-old is looking for a gold medal in the upcoming Championships after clenching silver in the last edition of the tournament, which was held in Eugene, USA, the last year. He has claimed the numero uno spot in two Diamond League Meetings this season – in Lausanne on June 30 and Doha on May 5.
Neeraj missed three premier competitions that were held between the two Diamond League Meetings after he sustained a muscle strain during training. He is now currently busy practicing at Magglingen in Switzerland.
Neeraj’s season-best performance is 88.67m in Doha, only next to 89.51m of Czech Republic’s Jakub Vadlajcb and 88.72 of Germany’s Julian Weber.
Participants Withdrawing Due to Injury
Meanwhile, Tajinderpal Singh Toor, who is an Asian record holder in shot-put, has withdrawn from the August 19-27 showpiece due to his groin injury that he suffered in Asian Championships in July.
National record holder race walker Priyanka Goswami, high jumper Tejaswin Shankar (also national record holder) and 800m runner K. M. Chanda have decided not to take part in the World Championships as they want to stay focused on Asian Games that will kick off from September 23.
“Tajinder is recovering from the injury he sustained during Asian Championships, and the others have informed that they would focus for Asian Games rather than World Championships,” a source in the AFI told PTI.
India is to field three athletes each in men’s triple jump, men’s 20km race walk and men’s javelin throw.
India were to send four men’s Javelin team. Neeraj had already qualified as a wild card as he is the reigning Diamond League Champion. However, Rohit Yadav has withdrawn after going under knife on the elbow of his throwing arm.
A country is allowed to field three athletes per event in addition to a wild card entry. An athlete can qualify either through a world ranking quota or by breaching the entry standard.
Delay in Fitness Tests
According to reports, the AFI is yet to arrange fitness tests on Chithravel and Jeswin Aldrin, who is the leading long jumper in the world after they took part in recently held top competitions. Aldrin had an impressive 8.22m performance at CITIUS Meeting in Bern, Switzerland, which earned him gold while Chitravel competed in Lausanne Diamond League on July 23.
