Javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra will be in focus as India eye its first athletics medal in the Olympics and end a 100-year wait. The 23-year-old Neeraj topped the qualification round with a stunning first-round throw of 86.59m.

Three track and field athletes were part of the five-member Indian team at the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium — the other two being wrestlers. Since then, no Indian has won a medal in athletics.

The International Olympic Committee still credits Norman Pritchard’s 200m and 200m hurdles silver medals in the 1900 Paris Olympics to India though various research, including the records of then IAAF (now World Athletics), showed that he had competed for Great Britain.

Neeraj can script history by winning the elusive medal. Milkha Singh and PT Usha came close to winning an athletics medal in the 1964 and 1984 editions, respectively.

“I am at my first Olympic Games, and I feel very good. In warm-up my performance wasn’t so good, but then (in the qualifying round) my first throw had a good angle, and was a perfect throw,” Neeraj said after the qualification round on Wednesday.

“I will need to focus on the throw, and try to repeat this (performance) with a higher score,” said the youngster who came into the Olympics with the fourth best throw (88.07m) this year.

His performance on Saturday was one of the best performances by an Indian in the Olympics. He finished before Johannes Vetter of Germany, who is the event favourite.

Vetter, who had earlier said that Chopra will find it tough to beat him in the Olympics, struggled in his first two throws before crossing the automatic qualification mark with an 85.64m final throw.

The 28-year-old towering German, who came into the Olympics after having seven monster throws of over 90m between April and June.

Season’s second top performer Marcin Krukowski (PB & SB 89.55m) of Poland and 2012 Olympics champion and 2016 Rio Games bronze-medallist Trinidad & Tobago’s Keshorn Walcott (PB 90.16m, SB 89.12m) failed to qualify for the final with best throws of 74.65m and 79.33m respectively.

Latvia’s 2014 under-20 World champion Gatis Cakss (PB & SB 87.57m) and reigning world champion Anderson Peters of Grenada failed to make the final cut.

Only Neeraj Chopra and Vetter remain among the top-five performers this season.

Pakistan’s Arshad Nadeem, who had won a bronze medal when Chopra clinched gold in the 2018 Asian Games in Indonesia, topped Group B to earn an automatic qualification to the finals with a second-round throw of 85.16m.

“I have always wanted an Olympic medal since I first became AFI president (in 2012) and I am hoping the dream will be realised before the end of my term,” Athletics Federation of India President Adille Sumariwalla told PTI.