Diamond League: Neeraj Chopra finishes second in Doha, merely 2 cm short of Jakub Vadlejch's winner

It was a battle of margins in Doha when reigning World and Olympic champion Neeraj Chopra achieved an 88.36m throw in the javelin event of the Diamond League on Friday.

Chopra's throw was a mere 2 cm short of Jakub Vadlejch 88.38m winning effort.

The Indian trailed his counterpart all through the six attempts but couldn't breach the Czech's throw.

With Vadlejch first and Chopra second, two-time world champion Anderson Peters took the third spot with a best throw of 86.62m.

Chopra had won the 2023 Doha Diamond League with a throw of 88.67m, ahead of Vadlejch (88.63) and Peters (85.88m).

Meanwhile, the other Indian in javelin throw, Kishore Kumar Jena had a disappointing Diamond League debut.

He was eliminated after three rounds of throws, with 76.31m being his best. He began with a 75.72m, then fouled his second effort, before coming up with 76.31m to be at ninth after three throws each by all the 10 competitors.

The next Diamond League meeting which has men's javelin as a discipline will be in Paris on July 7.

At each DL meeting, athletes are awarded 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 or 1 points for ranking first to to eighth respectively. The top six javelin throwers will compete in the Diamond League Finals in Brussels on September 13-14 and the winner will lift the DL champion's trophy.

(with PTI inputs)