GOLDEN DELIGHT: India hails Neeraj Chopra for historic gold medal at Tokyo Olympics

Add as a preferred source on Google

Bengaluru, Aug 7: A golden finish! What a way to bring down the curtains on India's Olympic campaign at Tokyo! A gold medal at last! Historic moment for the country as Neeraj Chopra's superb display in the men's javelin final at the Tokyo Olympics, saw the 23-year-old Chopra clinch gold on the penultimate day of the Tokyo Games.

Chopra's first throw of 87.03m sealed the medal for the Indian as he would have clinched the gold medal with that throw itself. But on his second attempt, Chopra bettered his performance with a throw of 87.58m, which remained the best throw of the final as Chopra clinched India's first gold in athletics.

Chopra also ended India's wait for a gold medal, after Abhinav Bindra won India's first individual gold medal at the Olympics in 2008. After 13 years, Chopra brought home a gold for the country and also becomes India's second individual gold medallist.

With Chopra's golden finish, India recorded their best ever Olympic medal haul with a total of seven medals. The seven include, one gold, two silver medals and four bronze medals.

Chopra's gold medal was an emotionally overwhelming moment for a nation of 1.4 billion and social media was flooded with congratulatory messages for the champion athlete.