Neeraj Chopra Secures Diamond League Final Spot Before World Championship

• Neeraj Chopra earns Zurich Diamond League Final berth with 15 points, ready for Tokyo World title defense.
• Despite skipping Silesia, reigning world champ Chopra secures spot thanks to win in Paris and strong showing.

Neeraj Chopra has qualified for the Diamond League 2025 Final in Zurich, which will be held on August 27 and 28. Chopra, who set a personal best in Doha this season, is one of the first men's javelin stars to qualify for the summit clash in Switzerland.

The current world champion has missed a number of tournaments this season as a result of experimenting with a new technique under Jan Zelezny's guidance. The last time he participated, he organized a gold-standard event in Bengaluru. Neeraj was supposed to play Arshad Nadeem of Pakistan at the Diamond League meeting in Silesia, Poland, on August 16, but he did not show up. The current Olympic champion, Arshad, pulled out because of an injury.

Julian Weber of Germany, Keshorn Walcott of Trinidad and Tobago, and Neeraj have all qualified for the summit match, per the latest rankings that were made public after the Silesia leg.

With two DL meetings—one in which he took first place and the other in which he placed second—Neeraj has 15 points. Chopra is third in the rankings, behind Julian Weber (15) and Keshorn Walcott (17).

This season, the 27-year-old reigning world champion surpassed the coveted 90m mark in the Doha DL in May with a throw of 90.23m, finishing second to Weber. In June, he won the Paris DL with an 88.16-meter throw. 

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The World Championships, which will take place in Tokyo from September 13–21, right after the Diamond League final, is where Chopra will defend his title.

Anderson Peters defeated Neeraj by 0.01 meters in the Diamond League final last year. In the Diamond League final, Neeraj placed second for the second consecutive year. After losing to Jakub Vadlejch of the Czech Republic in 2023, Neeraj was unable to defend his Diamond Trophy. Neeraj Chopra has one Diamond League victory to his name, which came in 2022.