Budapest, Olympic champion Neeraj Chopra on Sunday scripted history yet again as he became the first Indian to win a gold medal in the World Athletics Championships with a best throw of 88.17m in the men's javelin final here. In another first, three Indians finished in top eight with Kishore Jena (84.77m) and DP Manu (84.14m) taking the fifth and sixth spots respectively. Never before did three Indians finish in top eight of an event in the World Championships.The 25-year-old Chopra dominated the competition and achieved his best throw of the day in his second attempt. He had a foul to start with, but then got 88.17m, 86.32m, 84.64m, 87.73m and 83.98m.
Pakistan's reigning Commonwealth Games champion Arshad Nadeem took the silver with his season's best throw of 87.82m, while Jakub Vadlejch (86.67m) of Czech Republic got the bronze.
Olympic champion Chopra began with a foul but jumped to top spot with his second throw, and from thereon, he led the field till the end. Nadeem also maintained his second position from the third round after which it was 1-2 for the Indo-Pak duo till the end.
Chopra thus beat Nadeen once again as the Indian also won gold in the 2016 South Asian Games. Since then, the two have competed against each other in more than a dozen events and Chopra always returned triumphant.
Chopra has now become only the second Indian -- after legendary shooter Abhinav Bindra -- to simultaneously hold the Olympics and World Championships title. Bindra won the World Championships title when he was 23, and the Olympics gold at 25.
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