An Olympic title defence, the pursuit of a second Diamond League crown and the ever-elusive 90m mark – Neeraj Chopra will kickstart a lot more than just his 2024 season when he lines up at the Suhaim Bin Hamad Stadium inside the Qatar Sports Club here for the Doha Diamond League on Friday night.
After training schedules in South Africa and Turkey, Chopra will hope to start with a bang in his first competitive outing of the year and set the tone for the Paris Olympics. And while the 26-year-old will go in as an experienced pro and firm favourite, he will be accompanied by Kishore Kumar Jena, making his Diamond League debut. Jena, who trained in Australia before returning home ahead of the season-opener, will hope to continue his impressive growth since winning silver at the Asian Games and qualifying for Paris.
There has been talk of Doha being helpful for long throws with a lot of breeze, but Chopra has already played down the 90m hype, even indicating that Jena might just beat him to the mark. What will live up to the hype is the competition – defending Diamond League champion Czech Jakub Vadlejch has already thrown 87m this year, and former World Champion Anderson Peters of Grenada, who had the fifth-longest throw ever of 93.07m in 2022, will be keen to improve on a disappointing performance last year.
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Also in the fray will be Kenyan Julius Yego, Finland’s Oliver Helander and German Julian Weber, although the two big-set Germans – latest sensation 19-year-old Max Dehning and Johannes Vetter – will not be participating. But while Indian interest is restricted to javelin, clearly the most starry event --- long-jumper Murali Sreeshankar was scheduled to participate, but his season was cut short due to a knee injury and subsequent surgery last month – there will be no lack of big names elsewhere.
Olympic, European and World Indoor and Outdoor long jump champion Miltiadis Tentoglou of Greece will headline a field that includes Jamaica’s former world champion Tajay Gayle (8.69m PB) and Switzerland’s Simon Ehammer.
World and Commonwealth champion Nina Kennedy of Australia will face off against Britain’s Molly Caudery in the women’s pole vault and Daryll Neita will look to add the 100m here to her 200m win from Suzhou on April 27. Bahamas’ Steven Gardiner, like Chopra, will be looking to start his Olympic defence in the 400m here.
With Soufiane El Bakkali pulling out of the competition, world record holder Lamecha Girma of Ethiopia will lead the charge in the 3000m steeplechase and the men’s 200m, USA’s Kenneth Bednarek and Courtney Lindsey will battle for the top spot.
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