India’s Neeraj Chopra has won the gold medal in javelin throw in the Tokyo
Olympics. He threw 87.58 metres in his second throw to top
the chart. On Sunday, July 24, Neeraj Chopra won a silver medal at the World Athletics Championship (WAC). Here’s looking back at Chopra’s moment of Olympic glory:
Chopra looked strong from the get-go. His first throw was 87.03 metres,
second — the winning 87. 58 metres, and the third under 80 metres. However, his
competition was far behind.
Watch Neeraj’s throw here:
The
Olympics Twitter handle has posted a pinned tweet captioning Neeraj’s victory
as what it truly was: #ICONIC.
The Athletics Federation of India thanked Chopra for ensuring that the Indian national anthem is played at the Tokyo Olympics stage.
The last gold medal came for India in 2008 with Abhinav Bindra.
Brimming with confidence with hardly any nerves on display in his debut at the Games, Chopra walked in like a rockstar to make the Tokyo Games India’s best ever Olympic outing in what was the country’s final competitive outing at the ongoing edition.
After the end of the event, Chopra ran towards the Indian contingent in the stands with raised fists and wrapped himself with the tri-colour to run a short lap of honour.
His was the country’s seventh medal and first gold in this Olympics. With this, the country surpassed the previous best haul of six medals achieved in the 2012 London Games. Apart from Chopra’s gold, India have won to silver and four bronze medals.
Celebrations broke out across India at Neeraj Chopra’s win with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeting: “History has been scripted at Tokyo!”
With his fifth career best throw, Chopra has done what the likes of late Milkha Singh and PT Usha could not do in 1960 and 1984 editions.
