Neeraj Chopra to lead 28-member Indian team in World Athletics Championships
The Hindu
India's 28-member team for World Athletics Championships led by Olympic champion Neeraj Chopra, with athletes competing in javelin, triple jump, 20km race walk, long jump, 3000m steeplechase, 400m hurdles, 800m, 1500m, high jump, 35km race walk and 4x400m relay. Surprisingly Sports Ministry announced the team instead of Athletics Federation of India.
Olympic champion javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra will once again headline India's campaign in the World Athletics Championships beginning on August 19 in Budapest, Hungary, with the country fielding a 28-member team.
Surprisingly, the Sports Ministry announced the team instead of the Athletics Federation of India (AFI), which later said that most of the participating athletes have already reached Hungary to get used to the weather.
Reigning Diamond League champion Chopra is gunning for a gold medal in Budapest after winning a silver in the last edition in Eugene, USA, in 2022. He has won two Diamond League Meetings this season -- in Doha on May 5 and Lausanne on June 30.
The 25-year-old, who had missed three top competitions between the two Diamond League Meetings due to a muscle strain sustained while training, is currently training at Magglingen in Switzerland.
His season's best is the 88.67m in Doha, the third longest throw this season behind 89.51m of Jakub Vadlajch of Czech Republic and 88.72m of Julian Weber of Germany.
Meanwhile, Asian record holder shot putter Tajinderpal Singh Toor has pulled out of the August 19-27 showpiece as he is recovering from the groin injury he sustained during the Asian Championships in July.
National record holder high jumper Tejaswin Shankar, 800m runner K M Chanda and 20km race walker Priyanka Goswami (also national record holder) have also decided to skip the World Championships as they wanted to focus on Asian Games (September 23 to October 8) in Hangzhou, China.
He has worn India’s blues, albeit in an Under-19 World Cup, with K.L. Rahul, Mayank Agarwal, Harshal Patel and Jaydev Unadkat as his teammates. He has proudly adorned the Lion’s Crest — the famed Mumbai cricket logo — in all three formats. He has played with Yuvraj Singh, against Virat Kohli and Rahul Dravid and has the likes of Rahul and Joe Root in his illustrious list of dismissals. He is also a software developer for an IT giant, based in California. Virtually every middle-class Indian over the last three decades at some stage dreams of being either a cricketer or an IT professional. Saurabh Netravalkar has been combining two dreams, even after relocating to USA to pursue academics at the prestigious Cornell University in 2015.