Star javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra began the 2021 season with an outstanding performance and a new national mark -- of 88.07 metres -- in the third leg of the one-day Indian Grand Prix meet at Patiala's National Institute of Sports on Friday.
The 23-year-old athlete from Panipat hurled the javelin to the record distance in his fifth attempt to improve his previous best of 88.06m recorded on his way to winning the 2018 Asian Games gold in Indonesia.
The Olympic hopeful had last participated in January 2020 in a local athletics meet in South African city of Potchefstroom. Chopra had recorded a throw of 87.86m, which was better than the Tokyo Olympic qualification standard of 85m.
Chopra, who also set a junior world record (86.48m) in 2016, had to log much of his training indoors since the Potchefstroom event due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdown imposed in India. The 23-year-old from Haryana resumed outdoor training in May along with other elite athletes. Chopra has been training in Bhubaneswar, Odisha for the past two months along with other top javelin throwers in preparation for the Tokyo Olympics which starts on July 23.
His next stop is the Federation Cup athletics meet that will start from March 18 in Patiala.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)