Get Instant News Updates
Enable
x
Notification Settings X
Time Settings
Done
Clear Notification X
Do you want to clear all the notifications from your inbox?
Settings X
For Quick Alerts
ALLOW NOTIFICATIONS  
For Daily Alerts

India's Neeraj qualifies for IAAF Diamond League finals

Neeraj is currently perched sixth in the IAAF Diamond League standings for 2018 with 12 points from three meetings.

Neeraj Chopra

Bengaluru, July 28: India's ace javelin thrower Neerak Chopra ia among the five, who have qualified for the IAAF Diamond League finals to be held in Zurich on August 30.

The reigning Commonwealth Games champion will be joined by the likes of current world champion Johannes Vetter, Olympic champion Thomas Rohler, 2017 IAAF Diamond League champion Jakub Vadlejch, German champion Andreas Hofmann and Estonian record holder Magnus Kirt.

The remaining two spots will be decided at the final qualifying meet of 2018 in Birmingham on August 18.

Neeraj is currently perched sixth in the IAAF Diamond League standings for 2018 with 12 points from three meetings. The 20-year-old's first Diamond League competition saw him finish fourth in Doha with a throw of 87.43 metres.

It was a throw which saw him break his 2016 national record of 86.48 metres set at the Under-20 World Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland. The next meeting at Eugene saw him throw an under-par 80.81 metres, finishing sixth in tricky conditions.

Rabat was the meet at which the Indian clinched his place in the Diamond League final after throwing a 83.32 metres. Neeraj followed that up with a victory at Sotteville where he came up trumps with a throw of 85.17 metres.

Neeraj, who is eyeing a podium finish at next month's Asian Games to be held in Indonesian cities of Jakarta and Palembang, had recently clinched the gold at the Sotteville Athletics meet in France with a throw of 85.17m.

The IAAF Diamond League finals in Zurich (August 30) and Brussels (August 31) will invite the top-ranked athletes based on points achieved at the 12 qualification meetings.

Events from 100m up to 800m will have eight finalists (the 200m, 400m and 400m hurdles in Zurich will have seven, given the configuration of the track), horizontal jumps and throwing events will have eight finalists, and middle-distance events and vertical jumps will have 12.

The 18 Diamond disciplines not being contested in Birmingham have already made all of their scheduled appearances in the earlier qualifying meetings.

Story first published: Saturday, July 28, 2018, 11:00 [IST]
Other articles published on Jul 28, 2018