Star Indian athlete and double Olympic medalist Neeraj Chopra lifted the bar of Athletics courtesy his performance at the Olympics and world javelin events. Chopra has emerged as one of the best javelin throwers of the world due to his performance in the Olympics, World Athletics Championship, Commonwealth Games and others. After winning medals in the Olympics and other world events, many other athletes such as DP Manu, Kishore Jena, and Annu Rani came up to the front and have represented India in the sport at various events. Also, other athletes including Jyothi Yarraji, Avinash Sable and others represent India in other sporting events of the Athletics category.
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Seeing the growing popularity of the Javelin Throw in India, the country is set to host a tournament related to the Javelin Throw in 2025. Neeraj Chopra is all set to participate in the tournament and will take place in the month of September this year to be organised by the Athletics Federation of India. India have also expressed an interest in hosting the World Athletics Championship in 2029. The announcement was made by the outgoing AFI president Adille Sumariwalla.
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Other than the World Athletics Championships, India is also interested to host the 2028 World Relay Championships. India have already submitted a letter to host the 2028 Junior World Athletics Championships when the international body president Sebastian Coe visited India in November last year.
After the AFI Annual General Meeting, Adille Sumariwalla said, “There will be a top javelin competition in India in which the top-10 javelin throwers in the world will compete. This will be an invitation tournament to be held later this year. Neeraj Chopra will be there. He is part of the team that is organising the event, along with JSW, a foreign firm and the AFI are together creating this competition. This is being done as there is so much interest in javelin with August 7 — when Chopra won the Tokyo Olympics gold — being observed as National Javelin Day.”
Adille Sumariwalla’s 12-year-old tenure as the AFI president ended on January 7 and before the start of the AGM meeting former Indian shotput player and 2002 Asian Games gold medalist Bahadur Singh Sagoo was elected as the new AFI president unopposed.
