Karam Prakash
Tribune News Service
Patiala, February 27
Javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra qualified for the Commonwealth Games as he made a winning return to the domestic circuit.
Participating in his first competition after a training stint in Germany, Chopra outclassed the field to win the gold medal in the Indian Grand Prix-1 here today. With a best throw of 82.88m, the national record holder finished well ahead of silver medallist Vipin Kasana (80.04m) and bronze medallist Amit Kumar (77.33m).
However, national coach Uwe Hohn said that Chopra — who returned to the national camp after his three-month stint in Offenburg, Germany — could have done better. “Chopra has just returned to the national camp in Patiala. His performance could have been better today,” Hohn said.
“He has got a lot of energy but unfortunately he couldn’t transfer it into his throw,” the German added.
The one-day Indian Grand Prix-1 marked the beginning of the domestic calendar, also serving as a build-up event for the athletes ahead of the upcoming Federation Cup.
“We are planning to work on his (Chopra’s) cross step and throwing position before the Commonwealth Games. After the upcoming Federation Cup, we will be training in Australia for a few weeks to get used to the conditions for the CWG,” Hohn said.
Long jumper Nayana James and Punjab discus thrower Navjeet Dhillon also managed to qualify for the Commonwealth Games.
The 22-year-old Dhillon, bronze medallist at the 2014 World Junior Championship, impressed everyone with a new personal best throw of 59.18m, improving on her previous best by almost three metres.
Meanwhile, Annu Rani, the first Indian woman javelin thrower to cross the 60m mark, fell short of the qualifying mark for the CWG. She won the gold medal with an effort of 56.90m. In the men’s shot put event, Punjab’s Tajinder Pal Toor won the gold medal with an impressive throw of 19.90m but could not qualify for the CWG. Naveen Chikkara (19.08m) and Paramjeet Singh (16.74m) finished second and third, respectively.
Upcoming triple jumper Renu produced an upset. Renu’s best effort of 13.26m was enough to pip NV Sheena (13.08m), a silver medallist at last month’s Asian Indoor Championships in Tehran.
In the men’s triple jump, Kerala’s Rakesh Babu won the gold medal with a best effort of 16.59m, falling agonisingly short of AFI’s CWG qualifying mark of 16.60m.
Babu edged out former CWG medallist Arpinder Singh (16.45m) and national record holder Renjith Maheshwary (16.09m).
Teenager Hima Das ran her personal best of 11.74s in the women’s 100m race to take the silver medal behind Dutee Chand (11.57s).
MP Jabir claimed the 400m hurdles gold with a time of 50.60s.
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