Neeraj begins quest to defend his crown today at Paris Olympics

Neeraj Chopra aims to qualify for the final with a top 12 finish or a throw of 84m.

At noon time in Paris, at the Stade de France, Neeraj Chopra will get the campaign to defend his title underway in the qualifying round of the men’s javelin throw competition.

Neeraj will either have to be among the top 12 throwers in the qualification round or will have to make a throw of 84m in three attempts to automatically qualify for the final on August 8.

A total of 32 competitors will take part in qualification across two group of 16 athletes of whom 11 have already thrown over 85m this season.

Knowing Neeraj, he will likely try to qualify in his very first throw without waiting to find out what the rest of the field does. He says he learned this the hard way at the 2017 World Championships in London where he tried to conserve energy only to not make the finals of his first world event.

At the Tokyo Games, he qualified with his very first throw of the competition — which was also the longest throw across all the competitors. That effort set a statement that reverberated all the way to the final and marked Neeraj as one to watch out for.

At Paris, Neeraj’s reputation will precede him but there will be other claimants who will want to raise their profiles.

While Germany’s Johannes Vetter isn’t going to be around, compatriot Max Dehning, the only athlete to have thrown over 90m this season, Pakistan’s Arshad Nadeem, and two-time World champion Anderson Peters of Grenada will be some of the athletes competing alongside Neeraj in the Group B.