• Olympic champion Neeraj Chopra became the first Indian to win a gold medal in the World Athletics Championships with a best throw of 88.17m in the men’s javelin final in Budapest.

• Chopra began with a foul but jumped to top spot with his second throw, and from thereon, he led the field till the end. 

• Pakistan’s reigning Commonwealth Games champion Arshad Nadeem took the silver with his season’s best throw of 87.82m, while Jakub Vadlejch (86.67m) of Czech Republic got the bronze.

• In another first, three Indians finished in top eight with Kishore Jena (84.77m) and D.P. Manu (84.14m) taking the fifth and sixth spots respectively. Never before did three Indians finish in the top eight of an event in the World Championships.

• Chopra has now become only the second Indian, after legendary shooter Abhinav Bindra, to simultaneously hold the Olympics and World Championships title. 

• Chopra, who had become the first Indian Olympic track and field gold medallist in the Tokyo Games in 2021, had won a silver in the 2022 edition of the World Championships.

• Before him, long jumper Anju Bobby George had won a bronze in the 2003  World Championships.

• Chopra also became only the third javelin thrower in history to  simultaneously hold the Olympics and World Championships titles after the iconic Jan Zelezny of Czech Republic and Andreas Thorkildsen of Norway.

• Zelezny clinched the Olympics gold in 1992, 1996 and 2000 while winning World Championships title in 1993, 1995 and 2001. Thorkildsen won gold in the 2008 Olympics and the 2009 World Championships.

• Chopra has won every title his sport has to offer. He has won gold in the Asian Games (2018) and Commonwealth Games (2018), besides four individual Diamond League Meeting titles (two each in 2022 and 2023) and Diamond League champion's trophy last year.

• He also became junior world champion in 2016 and won the Asian Championships title in 2017.

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