Indian javelin star Neeraj Chopra delivered his best performance in over a year but narrowly missed out on the top spot, finishing second to rising Sri Lankan thrower Rumesh Pathirage by just nine centimetres at the Lausanne Diamond League meet on Friday.<\/p>\n
The 28-year-old Chopra’s 88.05m throw in the second round, which fetched him the second spot in the nine-man star-studded field, was his best after the 88.16m he recorded while winning the Paris Diamond League in June 2025.<\/p>\n
It was also his season’s best throw.<\/p>\n
However, the 23-year-old Pathirage continued his juggernaut this season as he overtook Chopra with his third-round throw of 88.14m. Grenada’s Anderson Peters was third with his sixth and final round effort of 86.69m.<\/p>\n
Reigning world champion Keshorn Walcott of Trinidad and Tobago was fourth with a best throw of 83.71m. World Championships bronze winner Curtis Thompson of the USA was sixth with a below par 78.13m while Tokyo Olympics silver winner Jakub Vadlejch of Czech Republic took the seventh spot with 77.32m.<\/p>\n
Chopra later said it was a close tussle between him and Pathirage for the top spot.<\/p>\n
“I didn’t realise it was only nine centimetres, it was really close, but I’m happy with the 88-metre throw. To be honest, it didn’t feel like it went 88m because I felt very relaxed. I tried really hard and later focused on my technique,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Indian javelin star Neeraj Chopra delivered his best performance in over a year but narrowly missed out on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":118912,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[9],"tags":[94,10667,11586,54540],"class_list":["post-118911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lausanne","tag-lausanne","tag-lausanne-diamond-league","tag-neeraj-chopra","tag-rumesh-pathirage"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/117137568276167377","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118911\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}