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Double Olympic gold medallist javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra on Sunday revealed that he participated in the Diamond League season finale despite a hand injury sustained during a training session.
On Saturday, Chopra came agonisingly close to winning the Diamond League crown, missing it by a single centimetre to finish as runner-up for the second consecutive year with a throw of 87.86m in Brussels, Belgium.
'As the 2024 season ends, I look back on everything I’ve learned through the year -- about improvement, setbacks, mentality and more,' he wrote on his social media handles along with a picture of his X-Ray results of the broken hand.
'On Monday, I injured myself in practice and x-rays showed that I had fractured the fourth metacarpal in my left hand. It was another painful challenge for me. But with the help of my team, I was able to participate in Brussels. This was the last competition of the year, and I wanted to end my season on the track.
'While I couldn’t meet my own expectations, I feel this was a season in which I learned a lot. I am now determined to return, fully fit and ready to go.
I want to thank all of you for your encouragement. 2024 has made me a better athlete and person. See you in 2025. Jai Hind!'
Chopra had been struggling with his fitness this season and is expected to meet a doctor to rectify a groin injury that has affected him all season and came in the way of his quest to hit the elusive 90m mark.
This hand injury is a new one and he did not elaborate much on it.
Chopra, who added a silver to his Olympic medal tally in Paris following a historic gold at the Tokyo Games, thus ended his season on a high.
The Haryana athlete was consistent throughout the season, though he won just one international event this season, the Paavo Nurmi Games in Turku, Finland on June 18.
He had made the Diamond League final cut after finishing fourth in the overall standings with 14 points from his two second-place finishes in DL one-day meets in Doha and Lausanne on May 10 and August 22 respectively.
Next season's major event is the World Championships in Tokyo (September 13-21) where Chopra would aim to defend the gold he had won in 2023. He has already qualified for the World Championships after breaching the entry mark of 85.50m.
The window for achieving the qualification standard is August 1, 2024 to August 24, 2025.