Athletics World C'ships 2023: Neeraj Chopra, M Sreeshankar lead Indian charge in Budapest

India have rarely gone into the Athletics World Championships boasting of several medal prospects. But when the 2023 edition begins on Saturday, August 19, the 28-member Indian contingent will be hoping for multiple qualifications into the finals and even a few more medals to boot.

Led by Olympic javelin champion Neeraj Chopra, India have a mix of debutants, like Jyothi Yarraji in 100m hurdles and Shaili Singh along with the returning Murali Sreeshankar and Jeswin Aldrin, all in long jump.

All these athletes will be aiming to kick things off in Budapest, Hungary with strong performances in the lead-up to a year outlined by the race to the 2024 Paris Olympics, and with the delayed 2022 Asian Games coming up in Hangzhou, China.

As the current Diamond League champion and third on the list of throws (88.07 m in the Doha leg) in the 2023 Diamond League, Chopra is certainly the best contender for the top spot on the podium. The 2022 World Championships silver medallist had a good start to his season this year, winning in Doha and most recently in Lausanne, all but securing his spot in the final in Eugene in September.

But what will be weighing on Chopra’s mind is his fitness – he had missed two meets in June due to a thigh injury picked up during training and made his competitive comeback in the Swiss leg of the Diamond League in July.

Speaking to media after his victory in Lausanne, Chopra asserted that he had already shifted his focus to the World Championships and indicated his desire to go one step better than he did in 2022. While the 25-year-old has already beaten the two throwers ahead of him in the Diamond League list, Jakub Vadlejch and Julian Weber, no athlete in the javelin event has managed to cross the coveted 90m mark so far this season. Chopra will also have to contend with the likes of defending world champion Anderson Peters who threw 90.54m last year to clinch the gold.

But when asked, after the Doha leg win in May, about if his plans during training included crossing the 90m, Chopra was quietly confident and said that the distance only mattered if his throw would win him events. The quiet confidence and winning formula will be on display on August 25 and 27 when Chopra takes to the field to try and win India’s first ever gold at the Athletics World Championships.

World Athletics C’ships: Neeraj Chopra delivers silver under a different kind of pressure

Emergence of Shaili Singh

One of the youngest contenders in her event, Singh does have some experience of succeeding at world events, having won silver at the Under-20 Athletics World Championships in Nairobi, Kenya in 2021. Recently, she also won her first senior medal at the Asian Athletics Championships last month when she finished second with a best effort of 6.54m to win silver.

Coached by Anju Bobby George and her husband Robert, Singh is still finding her groove despite having already qualified for the Asian Games as well as making her World Championships debut at the age of 19. Training under the national record holder and India’s only other Worlds medallist (George won bronze in the 2003 Paris edition), Singh has learned how to hone her natural talent and push herself to achieve greater heights.

In an interview with Sportstar, Singh indicated her desire to break George’s national record of 6.83m set during the 2004 Athens Olympics. The closest the 19-year-old has come to the feat was at the Indian Grand Prix in April with an effort of 6.76m. The first hurdle to clear for Singh is qualifying for the final on August 20, the April effort being her season best and placing her 25th on the list of competitors in Budapest. Irrespective of where she places in the final list, the experience will prove invaluable for Singh who is a strong favourite for the top spot at the Asian Games.

Men’s long jumpers

The men’s long jump will have experienced legs in Sreeshankar and Aldrin who are currently sixth and 16th in the world rankings. However, the duo lead the best season jumps with Aldrin at 8.42m (albeit wind-assisted) and Sreeshankar’s effort of 8.41m which is also his personal best. The latter also featured in the best jumps of 2022 at 8.36m and eventually ended up finishing seventh in Eugene last year.

Sreeshankar will enter this year’s competition with some good performances on his back – a silver medal at the Asian Athletics Championships in Bangkok, a third place finish at the Paris Diamond League in June and a fifth place finish in Lausanne last month. The 24-year-old also has a Commonwealth Games silver medal to his name and will be looking to get close to the podium, if not win India an unprecedented medal in long jump.

Sreeshankar himself knows the importance of winning medals at such world events, especially in athletics. The national record holder indicated that Chopra’s Olympic achievement gave a lot of Indian athletes, irrespective of their event, the confidence to participate at major events like the Diamond League to gain experience. And even hope to win.

He also stressed on the importance of competing at such events against the world’s best, like Olympic champion Miltiadis Tentoglou, Simon Ehammer and Maykel Masso. He said that jumping with the best would hone the ability to compete under pressure and eventually result in medal success.

For Aldrin, qualifying for the final would be an improvement to 2022 where he finished 20th. The season leader withdrew from the Asian Athletics Championships and Lausanne Diamond League due to fitness and injury concerns. But Aldrin managed to recover in time to put in a gold medal-winning performance at the Citus meet in Bern, Switzerland, beating World Championships bronze medallist Ehammer with an effort of 8.22m.

Jyothi Yarraji, India’s record-breaking hurdler, who loves to rise after a fall

Other Indians to watch

Yarraji will start in Budapest fresh from her double medal winning feat at the Asian Athletics Championships, where she won gold in 100m hurdles and silver in women’s 200m. The Indian national record holder will hope to reach at least the semi-finals in her first Worlds and may need to dig deep to achieve this by passing her personal and season best of 12.78s.

Avinash Sable has been on a brilliant run of form since his impressive Commonwealth Games silver medal at Birmingham in 2022, where he became the first non-Kenyan to win a medal in the event in 28 years. Having already secured his spot at the Olympics next year, Sable will be aiming to shake off the nerves that saw him finish 11th last year.

The 28-year-old has two top-10 finishes in the Diamond League this season in Stockholm and Silesia, the latter being where he crossed the Olympic qualification with a time of 8:11.63 minutes.

Triple jumper Praveen Chitravel, who is fifth on the season best jumps list and finished sixth in his debut Diamond League outing in Monaco, is India’s leading prospect in the event and will be hoping to surpass Eldhose Paul’s effort from 2022 where the latter became the first Indian triple jumper to qualify for the final and finished ninth.

The number of athletes who qualified from India for the Budapest edition would have been more but Asian record holder for shotput Tajinder Pal Singh Toor and javelin thrower Rohit Yadav pulled out due to injury.

National record holder high jumper Tejaswin Shankar who is also competing in the decathlon event, 800m runner K M Chanda and 20km race walker Priyanka Goswami all decided to skip the tournament despite qualifying, to focus on the Asian Games that follow the World Championships.

Javelin thrower Kishore Kumar Jena, who was the fourth name to qualify for the Worlds making it an unprecedented number of Indians in the event, will be going to Hungary after the embassy provided clearance on Friday, as reported by PTI.

* Suspended for failing to report her whereabouts by National Anti-Doping Agency and withdrawn by AFI

Fans in India can watch the 2023 World Athletics Championships live on Jio Cinema.