American Ashton Eaton won his second straight Olympic decathlon gold medal on Thursday, extending his reign in a sport whose champion earns the title of the world's greatest athlete.
Neeraj Chopra's soaring javelin did not just earn India their first Olympic gold in athletics on Saturday, it also meant that the contingent will return from Tokyo with seven medals, their biggest Games haul ever.
Yulimar Rojas of Venezuela soared to her fourth consecutive world triple jump title on Friday.
Olympic champion Neeraj Chopra faces the likes of reigning World champion Anderson Peters of Grenada and Tokyo Olympics silver medallist Jakub Vadlejch of Czech Republic in a star-studded field in Doha.
Neeraj Chopra had fallen agonisingly short of the 90m mark, throwing the spear to a distance of 89.94m at the Diamond League meet in Stockholm.
American Ashton Eaton cemented his position as the world's greatest athlete when he won the world decathlon title on Sunday, completing a spectacular hat-trick having won Olympic gold and broken the world record last year.
India would be looking for at least half a dozen medals in the July 28 to August 8 Games.
India's Manika Batra and Mouma Das lost 3-0 to Tianwei Feng and Mengyu Yu of Singapore in the women's sinlges final.
Neeraj Chopra said he has suffered a muscle strain and was pulling out of next month's FBK Games as a precautionary measure.
Neeraj Chopra has displayed sizzling form in season 2023, winning almost everything on offer. However, the star athlete has no qualms admitting that defending his gold medal at the Paris Olympics will be a huge challenge since maintaining top form on a consistent basis is not easy.
With this, India now has 12 medals and the fourth bronze at the 2020 Paralympics.
Chopra threw a personal best 89.30m at last month's Paavo Nurmi Games before improving it to 89.94m at the Stockholm Diamond League.
Olympic champion Neeraj Chopra will begin the season at the Doha Diamond League.
Chopra said he has missed the "natural feeling" of being in a world-class field, except for one occasion, in the run up to the Games which opens on July 23 -- that one time was the Kuortane Games event in Finland on June 26 where he won a bronze with a performance of 86.79m in a star-studded field comprising, among others, Olympics gold favourite German Johannes Vetter, who won the event with a massive throw of 93.59m.
Sharad Kumar smashes continental record for gold in men's high jump
Triple jumper Arpinder Singh created history by becoming the first Indian to win a medal in the IAAF Continental Cup as he clinched a bronze but star javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra finished sixth with a below-par show, in Ostrava, Czech Republic, on Sunday.
American Ashton Eaton retained the decathlon world title on Saturday and broke his own world record with a score of 9,045 points.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday met the Indian athletes who took part in the Rio Paralympic Games, including the four medallists, and applauded them for making the country proud with their achievements. The 19-member Indian contingent had returned home from the Paralympics with two golds, one silver and a bronze. Mariyappan Thangavelu (men's T42 high jump) and Devendra Jhajharia (men's F46 javelin throw) had won gold in their respective events while Deepa Malik (women's F53 shot put) and Varun Singh Bhati (men's T42 high jump) had bagged a silver and bronze respectively.
The Rediff Labs team analysed the data from Rio 2016 Paralympic Games' official website and created the above map with a total number of medals won by each country.
Besides the duo, 2017 World Weightlifting Champion in the 48kg category, Saikhom Mirabai Chanu and former Asian Games gold medallist tennis player Somdev Devvarman were conferred with the Padma Shri award.
'I didn't know it would be gold, unbelievable feeling' says javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra after his gold medal-winning feat.
Images from the felicitation for India's Tokyo Olympics medal-winners, in Delhi, on Monday.
A look at the historic achievements by India's athletes in 2022.
Sporting fraternity hails Kohli's epic knock in win against Pakistan as one of a kind
Olympic champion Neeraj Chopra will be primed to breach the 90m mark during the Kuortane Games in Finland on Saturday after his spectacular return to action in Turku where he had sent his spear to 89.30m for a new national record.
'Team India's participation in the Olympics couldn't have ended on a sweeter note'
Infuriated over Khel Ratna snub Paralympian Deepa Malik gets Haryana CM backing 'And I am not lobbying for it. Lobbying is when you try to influence people before the committee sits and decide. When I found my name is not there, I wrote to the ministry, it's an appeal. I have got the backing of my state CM. Haryana is a sports conscious state. He (CM) also felt that I have been overlooked'
The spotlight will be on Neeraj Chopra and Hima Das while Dutee Chand would look to prove a point when India's track and field athletes begin their campaign in the Asian Games in Jakarta on Saturday.
Preparing for the AFC Asian Cup, two of India's top women's team footballers are taking inspiration from their counterparts in hockey, who claimed a historic fourth-place finish at the Tokyo Olympics.
Following is the schedule of Indian contingent on the 10th day of the Asian Games tomorrow.
Neeraj Chopra will be the cynosure of all eyes as India begins its athletics campaign in the Asian Games
The world braced up to a post-Bolt era but for India there was no momentous change as the country's athletes did nothing for the global audience to take note of.
Images from the World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon, on Friday, Day 8.
India's triumphant Tokyo Olympics contingent, including history-making Javelin Throw gold-medallist Neeraj Chopra, returned to the country on Monday and was greeted by frenzy and chaos at the New Delhi airport, where supporters jostled to catch a glimpse of their sporting heroes.
Javelin thrower Shivpal Singh makes cut for World Championships
Paralympic gold-winners Avani Lekhara, Sumit Antil, Pramod Bhagat, Krishna Nagar, Manish Narwal were also given the Khel Ratna at a dazzling awards ceremony on Saturday.
Olympic javelin champion Neeraj Chopra expected to breach the 90m mark at the Diamond League final in Zurich but said he was happy to win the trophy, becoming the first Indian to do so.
The 23-year-old Chopra, who had won an Olympic gold with a throw of 87.58m, had said that his next target would be to win a medal in the World Championships in the US next year.
'I don't think I should think about that, it's up to the people to think'
India's high jumper Tejaswin Shankar on Thursday said he has not been able to perform to his full potential owing to chronic tendonitis and it's now a "certainty" that he will compete in decathlon at next year's Asian Games.
