Neeraj Chopra qualifies for Olympics 2024, World Championships final

08/25/2023

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Finally, there is something to cheer about in the Indian camp participating at the World Athletics Championships, as the reigning Olympic gold medalist Neeraj Chopra made it to the finals of the event on Friday. He cleared a distance of 88.77m in his first attempt to seal the finals berth.

Competing in Group A, Neeraj did not take too long to make it to the final 12 in the event and is in line to win India's first medal in this year's championship. The Indian also qualified for the 2024 Paris Olympics with this effort, since the automatic qualification for the prestigious event was kept at 85.50m. The qualifying window began on July 1.

Neeraj, apart from winning a medal here, would like to better his personal best of 89.94m, which he had achieved at the Stockholm Diamond League on June 30, 2022. The finals of the event will be played on Sunday. Interestingly, this was Neeraj's season-best throw, bettering an effort of 88.67m at the Doha Diamond League in May.

Another Indian in the fray, DP Manu had a best throw of 81.31m and finished third in the group behind Germany's Julian Weber who cleared a distance of 82.39m. After the Group B throws are done, Manu might also qualify for the final.