The Athletics Federation of India (AFI) on Monday announced a 26-member team to compete in the Tokyo Olympics to be held from July 23 to August 8. The list included the name of India’s star javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra.

“We are happy that the national squad is well prepared, physically and emotionally, for the Olympic Games. We are pleased that our athletes have remained in training ever since the lockdown was lifted. The federation is looking forward to a good show by the team,” said Adille Sumariwalla, president AFI, in a release issued on Monday.

The Tokyo Olympic Games will officially open on July 23, but track and field events will start from July 31.

As many as 12 athletes and the 4x400m mixed relay team has achieved entry standards laid down by World Athletics, to secure automatic berths.

Dutee Chand (women’s 100m and 200m), MP Jabir (men’s 400m hurdles), Gurpreet Singh (men’s 50km race walk) and Annu Rani (women’s javelin throw) qualified for the Olympics in their respective events on the basis of their world rankings points.

The squad:

Men: Avinash Sable (3000m steeplechase); MP Jabir (400m hurdles): M Sreeshankar (long jump); Tajinderpal Singh Toor (shot put); Neeraj Chopra and Shivpal Singh (javelin throw); KT Irfan, Sandeep Kumar and Rahul Rohilla (20km race walk) and Gurpreet Singh (50km walk); 4x400m men’s relay: Amoj Jacob, Arokia Rajiv, Muhammed Anas, Naganathan Pandi, Noah Nirmal Tom; 4x400m mixed relay: Sarthak Bhambri, Alex Antony.

Women: Dutee Chand (100m and 200m); Kamalpreet Kaur and Seema Antil-Punia (discus throw) and Annu Rani (javelin throw); Bhawna Jat and Priyanka Goswami (20km race walk) and Revathi Veeramani, Subha Venkatesan and Dhanlakshmi Sekhar (mixed 4x400m relay).

New Delhi: The World Athletics, the forum that overlooks various athletic events around the world has mentioned India’s Neeraj Chopra as a medal prospect in Tokyo Olympics to watch out for. 

Neeraj Chopra represents India in the javelin throw and has previously held the world record for U-20 Javelin throw. World Athletics is compiling a list of 100 athletes to watch out for from various sports. They have included Chopra in the top 10 athletes in Long Throws. 

The list includes Maria Andrejczyk of Poland, Lauren Bruce of Thailand, Neeraj Chopra of India, Pawel Fajdek of Poland, Anderson Peters of Grenada, DeAnna Prince of the USA, Roza Rodriguez of Venezuela, Barbora Spotakova of Czech Republic, Johannes Vetter of Germany, and Rudy Winkler of the USA.

While mentioning Neeraj Chopra, the World Athletics wrote: “Five years ago Chopra had a breakthrough performance to win the world U20 title, setting a world U20 record of 86.48m at the age of 18. That came too late for him to qualify for the Olympic Games in Rio but he will now head to Tokyo looking to make history for his nation. Only one athlete – Norman Pritchard – has ever won Olympic athletics medals for India, back in 1900, and Chopra will aim to emulate that, with an eye on becoming the nation’s first ever gold medallist.

The 2018 Commonwealth and Asian Games champion missed 2019 due to injury but threw 87.86m during his one competition in 2020 and then improved his own Indian record to 88.07m earlier this year. “I hope to continue competing for my country,” he said in 2018, “and making my country proud.”

 

 

Olympic-bound star Indian javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra came up with a best effort of 83.18m to win an event in Lisbon, Portugal on Thursday (June 10) in his first international competition after more than a year. After beginning with 80.71m, Chopra sent the spear to 83.18m in his sixth and final throw to win the javelin event at the Meeting Cidade de Lisboa (Meeting, City of Lisbon).

His second, third and fifth throws were fouls while he recorded 78.50m in his fourth effort under windy conditions at the Lisbon University stadium. The 23-year-old Indian, who has not taken part in any international event after qualifying for Tokyo Olympics in January last year in South Africa, had reached Lisbon on Sunday.

Neeraj Chopra marks his international return to competition with a best throw of 83.18m to win the Lisbon City Athletics Meet.

Way to go, Neeraj #BetterEveryday @Neeraj_chopra1 @afiindia

— JSW Sports (@jswsports) June 10, 2021

The reigning Asian and Commonwealth Games champion, who has a personal best of 88.07m, was to leave for Europe on Monday last for a training-cum-competition stint but it was delayed by a few days due to visa related issues. He had spoken about lack of competition hampering his Olympic build-up during an interaction a few weeks ago.

Chopra had broken his own national record with a throw of 88.07m in Patiala at the Indian Grand Prix 3 in March. He had qualified for the Olympics with a throw of 87.86m, which bettered the qualifying mark of 85m, at an event at Potchefstroom, South Africa, in January last year.

After that, he had a brief training stint in Turkey before rushing back home in March last year just before the lockdown was imposed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

(with PTI inputs)