It’s an all-India win at the javelin throw event in the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou as Neeraj Chopra defended his Gold medal with an 88.88-metre throw while Kishore Kumar Jena won a Silver with his personal best of 87.54 meters as he almost threatened the golden boy of the top spot at one point. It seemed like the Indian duo was competing within themselves only as after a couple of weak throws, both Neeraj and Jena came into their own.
Neeraj’s first throw was almost 87 metres long, however, it was declared invalid due to a technical malfunction. The malfunction meant a delay in the event after first throws of Chinese Taipei’s Chao-Tsun, Neeraj and Kuwait’s Abdulrahman. The delay lasted for almost 10-12 minutes, after which it was decided that Neeraj and Abdulrahman had to throw their first attempts yet again.
Neeraj’s first throw was weak at 82.38 metres while Kishore Jena too started with a sub-81 metre throw. Chopra bettered it with an 84.49m throw in his second attempt while Jena’s second didn’t even reach 80. However, both Neeraj and Jena had something special in store. Neeraj had another weak throw so he didn’t get it registered and Jena came up with a surprise.
The 28-year-old from Odisha surprised Neeraj, himself and the whole of India with his personal best throw of 86.77 metres in his third attempt and was now leading the Gold medal race. But Neeraj wasn’t going to back down
More to follow…