Neeraj Chopra is set to headline a top javelin competition in India in September 2025. The Athletics Federation of India (AFI) is set to bid for multiple world athletics events in the next few years including the 2029 World Championships and hence the invitational tournament will form part of that bidding process as India opens to the world as a market for javelin and other athletics competitions.
"There will be a top javelin competition in India in which the top 10 javelin throwers in the world will compete. This will be an invitation tournament to be held later this year," the outgoing AFI chief Adille Sumariwalla confirmed on Tuesday, January 7 on the first day of the Annual General Meeting (AGM). Chopra is set to be part of the organising committee alongside JSW, AFI and a foreign firm.
"Neeraj Chopra will be there. He is part of the team that is organising the event, along with JSW, a foreign firm and the AFI are together creating this competition. This is being done as there is so much interest in javelin with August 7 — when Chopra won the Tokyo Olympics gold — being observed as National Javelin Day."
Sumariwalla also elaborated on India's interest and planning to host the athletics tournaments in the next few years. "Bids are open at the moment for (2028) World Junior Championships, 2029 World Championships, World Relays (2027) and India is going to bid for all of them. We have put in our expression of interest and so the process has started. "
"We might also do a World Half Marathon," he said. Before the Javelin event, India will be host to the World Athletics Continental Tour bronze-level event in Bhubaneswar on August 10, which will be the first global athletics meet in the country since the late 1980s and early 1990s, after the international permit meets.
The 2002 Asian Games Shot Put Gold medallist Bahadur Singh Sagoo was elected as the next AFI chief unopposed just before the AGM.
(With PTI inputs)
