World Athletics Championships 2022: All eyes on Neeraj Chopra; Murali Sreeshankar enters as darkhorse
The 2022 World Athletics Championships get underway on Friday. While Neeraj Chopra will be the man to watch, Murali Sreeshankar will be darkhorse.
FollowChampion Indian javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra will carry billions of hopes into the World Athletics Championships 2022, as he aims to attain a landmark achievement. However, it also won't come as a surprise if long jumper Murali Sreeshankar grabs a piece of history at the showpiece event, which starts in Eugene, United States of America (USA), on Friday. Chopra has been cherishing his phenomenal results this season. The star athlete has broken his personal best twice this season, recording an 89.30 metres throw on June 14 during the 2022 Paavo Nurmi Games in Finland. Later, he landed his spear at 89.94 metres, just 6 cm short of the 90-metre mark during the prestigious 2-22 Stockholm Diamond League Meeting on June 30.
In between, Chopra also won the javelin throw event during the Kuortane Games in Finland, where he registered a throw of 86.69 metres in wet and slippery conditions. Given his form, the Tokyo Olympic Champion will be expected to script history. He would be looking to become only the second Indian and first male player from India to win a World Athletics Championships medal.
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Chopra's primary rival for the gold would be the defending champion Anderson Peters of Grenada. Peters is again the favourite to bag the gold, owning four of the top five throws this season. His best effort happens to be 93.07 metres, which is also the season's best result. A gold is, however, will not be beyond Chopra's reach. He has defeated Peters twice this season, during Paavo Nurmi Games and Kuortane Games. Peters also briefly struggled this season with an injury, while Chopra has been all healthy.
Chopra's other challengers include Olympic silver medallist Jakub Vadlejch, Julian Weber of Germany, 2012 Olympic champion Keshorn Walcott of  Trinidad and Tobago and Oliver Helander of Finland. Chopra will have company from Rohit Yadav, who registered a season-best of 82.54 metres and finished second at the 2022 National Inter-State Championships last month.
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The two qualifying rounds of the men's javelin throw competition happen on July 21, while the final occurs a couple of days later. On the other hand, national record holder long jumper Murali Sreeshankar is a dark horse, sitting jointly at second place among season leaders. At the same time, his personal best effort is an 8.36-metre effort, which came during the Federation Cup in April. In the qualifying rounds, he will be in action on Friday (early hours on Saturday in India).
The 23-year-old Sreeshankar has been consistent this season. He had a big jump of 8.31 metres during an event in Greece before his gold at the National Inter-State Championships, where his leap was 8.23 metres. He shares the second spot among season leaders with Olympic champion Miltiadis Tentoglou of Greece, who is the favourite to take the gold.
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The 24-year-old Tentoglou has claimed Olympic, world indoor (8.55 metres) and European outdoor and indoor titles in his events. He remains unbeaten in the outdoor season, grabbing eight wins out of the same, including Diamond League successes, which came in Rabat, Oslo and Stockholm.
However, the multi-talented Swiss athlete Simon Ehammer is the season leader, better known as a decathlete. He produced a monstrous jump of 8.45 metres during an event in Austria this May. Regardless, Tokyo Olympics silver medallist Juan Miguel Echevarria of Cuba is not participating. Jeswin Aldrin is another Indian with a wind-assisted 8.37-metre jump during the 2022 Federation Cup and will remain in the fray. Although he was initially not a part of the team after his form dipped, he was added later after a couple of rounds of trials.
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As for the men's 3,000 metres steeplechase, Avinash Sable will be looking to improve his timing by some seconds if he intends to be content for a podium finish in a challenging field, as his national record effort was 8:12.48. He will compete in the heats on Friday. The competition's opening day on Friday will also witness Sandeep Kumar and Priyanka Goswami competing in the men's and women's 20km race walk event finals, respectively. Also, shot putter Tajinderpal Singh Toor, the Asian record holder, will have his qualification round.
The Athletics Federation of India (AFI) named a 22-member team. However, long jumper Aldrin was later added to the contingent. Nevertheless, three athletes will be missing the championships: Quarter-miler Aishwarya Mishra and men's 4x400m relay team member Arokia Rajiv after failing to impress the selectors in the couple rounds of trials. Unfortunately, 200 metres runner S Dhanalakshmi has encountered visa problems.
