Neeraj Chopra returns to Tokyo with higher stakes

Bengaluru: Here we go again! World Athletics Championships are upon us and all eyes are once again on India's star javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra, who returns to his favourite playground Tokyo, where it all began four years ago.

While the Tokyo Olympics made him the king he is today, Neeraj ensured nobody would forget that as he takes the field as the defending champion, who finally conquered the much-talked about 90m-mark with his season and personal best of 90.23m. 

However, Indian athletics has much more to discuss than javelin as the events are at least five days away while plenty of other Indians are in action. Some are also making a case of their own, including the two horizontal jumpers in the 19-member squad.

Jumpers in fray

Of them, long jumper Murali Sreeshankar (SB: 8.13m) will fancy himself a shot at a medal as he comes to Tokyo on the back of three 8-plus jumps out of five events he competed this season. Two-time Olympic and defending World champion Miltiadis Tentoglou (8.46), however, has set the standard high once again with the only jumper to manage a 8.40-plus jump this year.

While Sreeshankar may like to remind everyone that he is capable of making the big jumps (8.41m in Bhubaneswar, 2023), the likes of Mattia Furlani (SB: 8.37), Tajay Gayle (8.34) and Simon Eahammer (8.34) will be eager to end the Greek monopoly.

The case of Praveen Chithravel looks no different from Sreeshankar as the the triple jumper comes to Tokyo on the back of his national record-equalling leap of 17.37m. As he takes on the likes of Andy Diaz (17.80) Ruiting Wu (17.68) and Pedro Pichardo (17.47), Praveen would want to ignore the fact that he hasn't made one 17-plus jump in the last four months.

For the rest of the Indian pack, this will be another Worlds where they will be running their own races, including debutant sprinters Animesh Kujur (200m) and Tejas Shirse (110m hurdles). 

Athletics Federation of India (AFI) have made it clear that they expect the elite and non-elite category athletes to do their personal best at least. Even if half of the squad manages to do that, it will be a new high for Indian athletics.

In action today: Men’s & Women’s 35km Race Walk Final (Ram Baboo, Sandeep Kumar and Priyanka Goswami) 4:30 am IST; Women’s 1500m Heats (Pooja) 4:20 pm.