Neeraj Chopra tunes up for Bengaluru Classic with Golden Spike gold

The 2025 season, which will see Neeraj Chopra defending his World Championship gold in Tokyo in August, could well be his best yet.

Not only has he breached the long awaited 90 metres barrier, the javelin ace has now won two back-to-back events with the Ostrava Golden Spike on Tuesday night, 24 June, on the back of his Paris Golden League triumph.

Despite ensuring a gold with his throw of 85.29m, Neeraj was not happy. Still, it did set him up as a favourite ahead of a meet before his home crowd at the Neeraj Chopra Classic — his next event, rescheduled to 5 July in Bengaluru.

The NC Classic, set to become the first-ever World Athletics A category or Continental Tour Gold-level event to be held in India, was initially scheduled for 24 May — but the cross-border tensions between India and Pakistan led to the postponement of the event.

Two-time world champion Anderson Peters of Grenada, Rio 2016 gold medallist Thomas Rohler of Germany and 2015 world champion Julius Yego of Kenya were earlier confirmed for the event. The USA’s Curtis Thompson, Japan’s Genki Dean, Luiz Mauricio da Silva of Brazil and Sri Lankan athlete Rumesh Pathirage were also among the other international names in the NC Classic 2025 entry list.

While Chopra had also extended an invitation to Pakistan’s Arshad Nadeem, the Olympic champion for the marquee event earlier, it’s not feasible now in view of the two countries’ clampdown on visas after the border stand-off. India’s promising talents including  Kishore Jena, Sachin Yadav, Rohit Yadav and Sahil Silwal will also be competing in the big league this time.

Speaking to broadcasters after the Ostrava gold, Chopra said that it was one of his biggest goals to win the prestigious event and that he grew up watching legends Jan Zelezny — now his mentor — and Usain Bolt winning this event.

“I am not that happy with my performance today, but I am very happy with the trophy I won,” he said. “I used to watch this meeting a lot as a kid. I watched people like Jan Zelezny and Usain Bolt winning the Golden Spike and I dreamt of winning one as well. Now the dream has come true.”

“I know the javelin throw is very popular in Czechia. The amount of support we were getting from the crowd was crazy. I just wish I could have performed better for them,” Chopra added.

A heartening feature of Neeraj’s campaign was that he was more consistent in Czech Republic, registering four legal throws beyond the 80m mark. Urging the Ostrava crowd to get behind him for his final attempt, he went for a big finish — but deliberately overstepped the foul line after sensing the throw would fall short of 85m. The 2021 Olympic champion comfortably dominated the nine-man field though, which was missing one of his fiercest rivals: Julian Weber.

The NC Classic, meanwhile, has announced a cluster of names as corporate partners for the event on Tuesday — Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) as the accelerating partner, Visa as the official partner and Stage App as the official entertainment partner. JioStar has secured the official broadcast partner rights, while ACT Fibernet is the official wi-fi partner.

Karan Yadav, chief commercial officer of JSW Sports, a pillar partner of the event, said:  “The versatility and range of brands partnering with the Neeraj Chopra Classic is a testament to the excitement around this world-class competition. Neeraj and the world’s best javelin athletes competing on Indian soil is a landmark moment. The brand interest reflects growing confidence in India’s ability to host globally benchmarked sporting events.”