Zurich Diamond League | Rare second-place finish for Neeraj Chopra, Murali Sreeshankar ends fifth
World Champion and Olympic gold winner Neeraj Chopra finished second in the men's javelin throw competition at the Zurich Diamond League in the early hours of Friday. He recorded a best throw of 85.71m in the final round, behind Czech Republic's Jakub Vadlejch (85.86m).
Julian Weber of Germany finished third with a best throw of 85.04 metres. Neeraj launched the first attempt 80.79 metres. With a throw of 81.62 metres, Edis Matuseviius of Lithuania claimed the lead. Edis held a lead at the completion of the first round.
Jakub Vadlejch of the Czech Republic made a strong 83.46 m throw on his second try, moving Edis and Neeraj down one rank apiece. Neeraj's second effort resulted in a foul, which kept him in third place. Then Julian Weber of Germany made a throw that was 84.75 metres. Neeraj thus fell to position five. Neeraj was ranked fifth when Weber took the lead at the end of round two.
Neeraj's third try ended up being a foul as well, leaving him in fifth place. Weber maintained his advantage at the completion of round three.
With a throw of 85.86 metres on his fourth try, Czech athlete Jakub seized the lead in the 10-person field. Neeraj remained in position five. Neeraj moved up to second place with a tremendous 85.22 m fourth throw, which placed him. In round 4, Jakub took the lead, with Neeraj coming in second.
The fifth throw by Neeraj was illegal. He still did enough, though, to maintain his ranking of number 2. In the competition, the world champion fouled out a third time. Despite making a foul of his own, he finished the second to final round with number two and Jakub's advantage still intact.
Neeraj failed to successfully defend his Diamond League championship and finished in second place. Jakub won the competition with his last throw of 85.71 metres, just missing out on the gold.
On the other hand, Murali Sreeshankar of India, who had his longest leap of 7.99 m, placed fifth in the men's long jump competition. Sreeshankar maintained his podium chances for more than half of the competition, but he was unable to match others' efforts and fell in the standings in the second part of the event.
Greece's Miltidias Tentoglou won the event with an 8.20-meter leap, and Tamay Gayle finished in second place with an 8.07-meter leap. Lawson Jarrion of the United States took third place with a leap of 8.05 metres.