The battle for medals in India has started at Tokyo Olympics. Starting with Mirabai Chanu winning Silver medal in weight lifting, India Hockey team men claiming their Bronze medal, PV Sindhu with her Bronze in Badminton. And today, Bajrang Punia won bronze medal in wrestling.
And the history has repeated in India, today, Neeraj Chopra had a stunning performance to win India’s first Olympic gold medal in athletics. The 23- year old athlete from Lovely Professional University has finally won some best records of 87.58 m to finish ahead of Czech Republic duo of Jakub Vadlejch and Vitezslav Vesely. And its being an first gold medal to India in Tokyo Olympics and also the country second individual gold medal after abhinav bindra’s won in Beijing 2008.
Neeraj Chopra had come into the final as one of the favourites to win a medal after topping the charts in qualification. Chopra started off with a throw of 87.03, taking the lead after the first round of throws itself. If that was a good start, he went even better with his second attempt, registering a throw of 87.58.
His third throw was 76.79. In a major upset, Germany’s Johannes Vetter – who was favourite to win the gold – was knocked out of contention after he failed to be in the top 8 after three throws. Neeraj Chopra’s fourth and fifth attempts were foul throws, but he topped the leaderboard. His last throw was a formality with all his competitors having already finished their attempts, and he recorded 84.24 with the attempt. Czech javelin thrower Vadlejch had the second best throw of 86.67, while his compatriot Vesely clinched bronze with his attempt of 85.44m.
Earlier in the day, Aditi Ashok draws her best performance by an Indian golfer in the Olympics but the 23-year-old did not clinch the eagerly-anticipated medal. Aditi reached till 4th place after spending a majority of the four rounds in contention of a podium finish, on Saturday.
The Bengalurean ended two strokes off the pace with a total of 15-under 269, which was just one stroke below the medal bracket. In the final round, she managed a 3-under 68 It was a heart-breaking end to Aditi’s campaign considering she started the day in sole second position. Moreover, wishing India to continue the streak of winning medals in Tokyo Olympics. And Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated each and every athlete at Olympics.
