Neeraj Chopra, the reigning Olympic champion, has become the first Indian to be world number 1 in men’s javelin throw rankings released by World Athletics on Monday. With that, the 25-year-old has also become the first Indian athlete to be number 1 across all track and field events.
As the first Indian to win a gold medal in a track and field event at the Olympic Games in Tokyo 2020, Neeraj Chopra is currently leading Anderson Peters of Grenada by 22 points in the javelin throw rankings as of May 16 of this year. The Khandra-born athlete has a score of 1455 points, ahead of his next challenger from one of the Caribbean islands, who sits in second place with 1433 points.
Jakub Vadlejch from the Czech Republic, who is in third place in the javelin throw rankings, has a score of 1416 points, closely followed by Julian Weber of Germany with 1385 points. Meanwhile, Arshad Nadeem of Pakistan is currently in fifth place with 1305 points to his tally.
Earlier this month, Neeraj Chopra returned to competitive action at the first Diamond League meet of the year in Doha, Qatar, after an eight month injury layoff. He went on to win the event on May 6 with a world-leading javelin throw of 88.67m, just ahead of 88.63m effort from Czech Republic’s Jakub Vadlejch, while the World champion Anderson Peters from Grenada logged in 85.88m to come third.
The Olympic champion is expected to be in action next in Hengelo, the Netherlands on June 4 at the Fanny Blankers-Koen Games. He will follow it up with an appearance in Turku, Finland on June 13 at the Paavo Nurmi Games.