World Athletics Championships Budapest 2023: Neeraj Chopra emerges the king of the javelin, wins gold

Gold medallist Neeraj Chopra celebrates after the final at National Athletics Centre, in Budapest on August 27, 2023.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Neeraj Chopra roars as the javelin is expelled from his right arm. The eight-foot-long steel-tipped aluminium Nordic Valhalla screams skyward. Torqued by the Indian’s arm, its fluorescent green tail wiggles angrily like a hissing viper. For a moment its trajectory takes it high enough that disappears into the black sky above the Nemzeti Atletikai Kozpont in Budapest. Then you see it again as it begins its descent.

It sails over the dotted white arc that marks 80 metres from where the Indian stands.

There’s no arc that marks immortality. That’s where it lands. 88.17m.

Also read | For Neeraj Chopra, breaching the 90m is a target, not an obsession

The Indian is still roaring. He turns around to the stands where the people are screaming. Others are crying. The 25-year-old has a wide grin. He holds his arms aloft as he waits for the digital scoreboard to tell him what he already knows. The measurement comes in but it’s just a detail at this point.

The throw is more than enough. It ticks that final box in his staggering list of accomplishments. Neeraj Chopra is now the World Champion. It’s not that he needed the affirmation. The 25-year-old from Haryana is already an Olympic champion. He has already won gold in the Asian Games and Commonwealth Games. He had already become the first Indian man to win a world medal when he took silver at the Eugene World Championships behind Grenada’s Anderson Peters last year. He is already arguably the greatest Indian athlete of all time.

What’s a world title but just an underline for emphasis at this point? It’s a treasure trove that anyone would be grateful for.

Not the Indian. He doesn’t have the slightest bit of impurity in his treasure cabinet now. It’s all 24 carat.

The Indian is perfect. He’s needed to be.

Also read: Neeraj Chopra | A look at the achievements of the javelin champion

Coming into Budapest, he was undefeated this season. But he has only competed twice after suffering a groin injury after the first time. Two other throwers — Jakub Vadlejch and Julian Weber — have thrown better. Oliver Helander with an 89.93m personal best is here too. Pakistan’s Arshad Nadeem — a freak of a natural talent — is here too. He won the Commonwealth title last year with a throw of 90.18m — beating the Indian he admitted admiring to the magical 90m mark. Here in Budapest, Arshad had made a statement of intent with an effortless throw of 86.79m in qualifying.

Neeraj had done better with 88.77m but he might have felt Nadeem breathing down his neck.

He would have felt the heat on Sunday night too. He starts with a foul. It’s about 75m. Not enough for his standard and he steps over the foul line. The next one is good. 88.17m

On Sunday night, Neeraj breaks free of them all. Peters, the champion from last year, is left behind in qualification. The rest will bend the knee in the final. Vadlejch finishes with 86.67m. Weber with 85.79m. Nadeem the closest with 87.82

They try their best. They are good. Neeraj, his Nordic Valhalla flying where he wills, is great. He’s better than great. In Nordic mythology Vallhalla is home of the gods. At Budapest the Indian is one too.

In the men’s 4x400m relay, India finished fifth with a timing of 2:59.92s. U.S.A. Claimed the gold with 2:57.31 ahead of France (2:58.45) and Great Britain (2:58.71).