By News18,Vivek Ganapathy

Copyright news18

Neeraj Chopra will begin his World Championship title defence in the qualification round on Wednesday. He will face a strong field that includes Pakistan’s Olympic gold medalist Arshad Nadeem and Germany’s Diamond League champion Julian Weber.

Chopra aims to become the third male javelin thrower in history to defend his World Championship gold, which he won in the 2023 edition in Budapest. Czech legend Jan Zelezny (1993, 1995), now Chopra’s coach, and Grenada’s Anderson Peters (2019, 2022) are the other two athletes who have achieved this feat.

Chopra will encounter Nadeem for the first time since the 2024 Paris Olympics, where Nadeem took gold with a throw of 92.97m, while Chopra secured silver with a best of 89.45m. However, Chopra and Nadeem will not face each other on Wednesday as they are in different groups for the qualifying round. Their showdown is anticipated in the final round on Thursday.

The star-studded field also includes Weber, Peters, Kenya’s 2015 world champion Julius Yego, Trinidad and Tobago’s 2012 Olympic champion Keshorn Walcott, Czech veteran Jakub Vadlejch, and Brazil’s Luiz da Silva, another 90m thrower.

This event is historic for India, with Sachin Yadav, Yashvir Singh, and Rohit Yadav joining Chopra, marking the largest contingent from any country in the competition. Chopra has received a wild card as the defending champion, while the others qualified through world rankings.

Chopra is grouped with Weber, Walcott, Vadlejch, and Sachin in the 19-man Group A qualification round, while the 18-strong Group B includes Nadeem, Peters, Yego, Da Silva, Rohit, Yashvir, and rising Sri Lankan star Rumesh Tharanga Pathirage, among others. Athletes who reach the automatic qualifying mark of 84.50m or the best 12 will advance to the final round on Thursday.

In the previous edition in Budapest, Chopra won gold with a throw of 88.17m, with Nadeem (87.82m) and Vadlejch (86.67m) taking silver and bronze, respectively.