• Defending champion Neeraj Chopra won a silver in men’s javelin throw at the Paris Olympics on August 9. 

• He became the first Indian track-and-field athlete to win two successive Olympic medals. 

• Only wrestler Sushil Kumar (2008 and 2012) and shuttler P.V. Sindhu (2016 and 2021) have won back-to-back Olympic medals. Shooter Manu Bhaker won two Olympic medals in the Paris Olympics. 

• It was the season’s best effort from the Indian, the silver-winning 89.45m in the second round, but nowhere close to being enough for gold.

• In the Tokyo Olympics, Neeraj won gold with a throw of 87.58m and became the country’s first track and field athlete to win gold at the Olympic stage.

• On August 9, Pakistan’s Arshad Nadeem set a new Olympic record for his country’s maiden individual gold at the showpiece. Nadeem managed an astonishing 92.97m in his second attempt. 

• The earlier Olympic record stood at 90.57m in the name of Andreas Thorkildsen of Norway, set during the 2008 Beijing Games.

• Thorkildsen was watching the proceedings from the stands, along with three-time Olympic champion and world record (98.48m) holder Jan Zelezny of Czech Republic.

• It was not the first 90m effort from Nadeem, having thrown 90.18m to win gold in the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games.

• He is the second Asian to have thrown beyond 90m, the other being Chao-Tsun Cheng (91.36m in 2017) of Chinese Taipei.

• Grenada’s Anderson Peters won the bronze with an effort of 88.54m, while Czech Republic’s Yakub Vadlejch finished fourth (88.50m) and was followed by Kenya's Julius Yego (87.72).

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