By Faham Uddin

Copyright timesnownews

The highly anticipated Neeraj Chopra-Arshad Nadeem clash at the World championships won’t happen on Wednesday, September 17, during the qualification round, as both the stalwarts have been kept in separate groups. That, however, doesn’t mean that the players won’t compete against each others. Both Arshad and Nadeem are favourites to qualify for the final on Thursday, where the fans could see the Javelin legends battle for the title. Neeraj has been kept in Group A alongside Germany’s Diamond League winner Julian Weber, 2012 Olympic champion Keshorn Walcott, Czech veteran Jakub Vadlejch, and fellow Indian Sachin Yadav. Group B, on the other hand, features Nadeem, Grenada’s two-time world champion Anderson Peters, 2015 world champion Julius Yego, Brazil’s Luiz da Silva, India’s Rohit Yadav and Yashvir Singh, and Sri Lanka’s Rumesh Tharanga Pathirage. The benchmark for automatic qualification is 84.50m, and the top 12 will advance to the final on Thursday. Neeraj Chopra is entering the event as defending champion and will try to become only the third man in history to defend the world javelin title after Jan Jelezny (1993, 1995) and Grenada’s Anderson Peters (2019, 2022). The Indian legend claimed the gold in Budapest last year with 88.17m throw, beating Nadeem (87.82m) and Jakub Vadlejch (86.67m). This won’t be an easy title defence for Neeraj, and he will be challenged by competitors like Julian Weber, who has consistently crossed the 90m mark this season, and seasoned campaigners like Keshorn Walcott, Peters, Julius Yego, and Jakub Vadlejch, and Brazil’s Luiz da Silva. India will field four athletes for the first time in history, which is the largest representation from any nation. Neeraj secured a place in the event automatically as he was the defending champion while the other three qualified via world rankings. Neeraj has blown hot and cold this season. He breached the 90m mark in Doha with a 90.23m throw, but hasn’t been very consistent since then, with several throws falling short of the 85m mark. On form, Weber, who has breached the 90, mark thrice this season, will enter the tournament as favourites. In head-to-head match-ups this season, Chopra has trailed Weber 1-3, including the Diamond League Final last month when he managed 85.01m. Nadeem, on the other hand, has only participated at the Asian Championships in South Korea in May, where he won gold with a throw of 86.40m.