Neeraj Chopra to participate in Paavo Nurmi Games in Turku

India’s Golden Boy will look to breach that 90m mark soon

Neeraj Chopra started his season well with a World Lead throw of 88.67m to win the Diamond League opener in Doha. The World Championships silver medalist has been in great form since the Olympics and would now aim to hit that 90m mark soon. The Olympic Champion is set to participate in the Paavo Nurmi Games Continental Tour Gold Event at Turku, Finland on 13th June.

The 25-year-old has now thrown 88m+ throws in five consecutive tournaments becoming the fourth Javelin thrower and the first Asian to do so. The other athletes in the coveted list are Jan Zelezny (Czech Republic), Akki Parviainen (Finland) and Johannes Vetter (Germany).

The organizers have confirmed Neeraj's presence with a tweet on their social media platform. Neeraj won the silver medal in the last edition (2022) with a best throw of 89.30m (previous National Record) and would now look to upgrade his medal colour to gold. This will also be his third tournament of the year (set to participate in FBK games in the Netherlands on 3rd June).

The competition is full of star-studded athletes with former World Champion Johannes Vetter, who has a Personal Best of a whooping 97.76m (in 2020) returning to the competition after a break of one year. Apart from him, London Olympics gold medalist Keshron Walcott, who threw 81.27 at Doha and Tokyo Olympics Silver Medalist Jackub Vadlejch, who finished second in Doha with 88.63m are part of the list.

The Paavo Nurmi Games will be a blockbuster event as we can again see a healthy rivalry between Neeraj Chopra and Johannes Vetter alongside Walcott from Trinidad and Tobago.