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Lieutenant Colonel Neeraj Chopra (born 24 December 1997) is an Indian track and field athlete. Considered as one of the greatest javelin thrower of all time, he's a double medalist at the Olympic Games, World Championships, and the Asian Games. He has won the Diamond League once. Chopra won the gold medal at the 2020 Olympics, becoming the first Asian javelin throw athlete to do so. He became the first Asian to win a gold in javelin at the World Championships after his win in 2023. Chopra has won gold medals in every major tournament. He has a podium finish streak in 24 consecutive competitions, dating back to 2020. Since his performance at the 2016 World U20 Championship, he continues to hold the junior javelin throw world record.
Chopra is the first athletics gold medalist for India. , he is one of only two Indians to have won an individual Olympic gold medal, the youngest-ever Indian Olympic gold medalist in an individual event and the only individual to have won gold on his Olympic debut. He is one of the five individual multiple medalists for India at the Olympics after his silver medal at the 2024 Olympics. He was the first Indian to win at the World U-20 Championships, where he achieved a world U20 record throw of 86.48 m in 2016, becoming the first Indian athlete to set a world record in athletics.
Chopra's silver medal at the 2022 edition made him the second Indian athlete to win a medal at the World Championships. He has also won gold at the 2018 Commonwealth Games and is a multiple Asian Games gold medalist. He won gold at the 2018 and 2022 Asian Games, while also serving as the flag-bearer in the former edition.
Since June 2021, he has shown consistent results, finishing as a winner or runner-up in 24 consecutive competitions, finishing first overall in qualifying rounds at two back-to-back Olympic Games, and first and second overall in qualifying rounds at two back-to-back World Championships.
Alongside his schooling, Chopra won several national javelin championships in 2012 and 2014. Based on his performance at sports tournaments, Chopra was recruited into the Indian Army in 2016, where he was selected for the Mission Olympics Wing training at the Army Sports Institute in Pune. In 2021, he enrolled at Lovely Professional University in Jalandhar, Punjab and then proceeded to complete his Bachelor of Arts degree.
At the time, he and fellow javelin thrower Parminder Singh watched videos of Jan Zelezny to try and emulate his style. Initially, he achieved throws of around , but slowly increased his range. At the National Junior Athletics Championships held at Lucknow in October 2012, he won the gold medal with a new junior national record throw of .
At the 2016 South Asian Games, Chopra achieved a new personal best when he won gold with a throw of in Guwahati on 9 February. After the event, he began training under Australian coach Gary Calvert, who was appointed as the national javelin coach. He also sustained a back injury in April 2016 during the Federation Cup in New Delhi, which affected his performance. In July 2016, he won the gold medal at the 2016 IAAF World U20 Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland with a throw to set a new world junior record and became the first Indian to hold the national senior record and world junior record simultaneously. Although his record throw was above the qualification standard for the 2016 Olympics, he failed to qualify as the cut-off date had already elapsed. In September 2016, he left the Netaji Subhas Institute to train at the SAI centre in Bangalore. In December 2016, he was formally inducted as a Junior Commissioned Officer in the Indian Army. He was offered a rank of Naib Subedar in the Rajputana Rifles. He subsequently received extended leave to continue his training. He won gold in the 2017 Asian Athletics Championships at Bhubaneshwar with a throw of .
In the 2018 Commonwealth Games, Chopra registered a season-best effort of to win the gold medal. He became the first Indian to win the javelin throw at the Commonwealth Games. In May 2018, he bettered his national record at the Qatar Athletic Super Grand Prix with a throw of . In August 2018, he made his debut at the Asian Games, and was the flag-bearer for India during the 2018 Asian Games Parade of Nations. On 27 August, he threw a distance of to win the gold medal in the Games and bettered his own Indian national record and it was India's first gold medal in the javelin throw at the Asian Games.
Chopra was the only track and field athlete that year to be recommended by the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) for the country's highest sports award, the Major Dhyanchand Khel Ratna. He was awarded the Arjuna Award in September 2018. The army rewarded him with an out-of-turn promotion to subedar in November. In preparation for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, he trained with German coach Uwe Hohn, biomechanics expert Klaus Bartonietz and physiotherapist Ishaan Marwaha. Hohn worked on refining Chopra's throwing technique, which he labelled as "wild".
Due to the pandemic and lockdown in India, Chopra spent the next year training at Patiala. In late 2020, the Athletics Federation of India and the Government of Odisha arranged a training camp at Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar, which he attended from December 2020 to February 2021. On 5 March 2021, he again bettered his own national record with a throw of , which ranked him third-best internationally for the season. He applied for travelling to Sweden for training, but faced difficulties due to the effects of the pandemic. After weeks of attempting to secure a visa, he was cleared to travel to Europe with his coach following the intervention of the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports and the Ministry of External Affairs. He flew to Paris on 5 June 2021 for a mandatory quarantine period before travelling to Portugal for the Meeting Cidade de Lisboa. He opened his international season of 2021 there with a throw of , which earned him the gold medal. He remained in Lisbon until 19 June before travelling to Uppsala in Sweden for training sanctioned by SAI at a cost of .
In June 2021, Chopra went on to compete in the Athletics meet in Karlstad, Sweden, where he achieved a gold with a sub-par throw of . He won a bronze in the subsequent Games in Karlstad, Finland with a throw of . He won the gold medal with a throw of in his first and only legal throw. He attributed his reduced performance to a tendency to throw the javelin higher than he wanted to, along with having to use a different javelin as his own was unavailable. Following the Kuortane Games, he travelled to Lucerne to compete in the Spitzen Leichtathletik Luzern, but decided to withdraw due to fatigue. Later, he attempted to secure a visa for the Diamond League meeting at Gateshead on 13 July, but faced difficulties due to the pandemic and instead continued training in Uppsala.
In the 2022 Diamond League, Chopra broke his own national record with a throw of during his second-place effort at the BAUHAUS-galan in Stockholm. In July 2022, he won the silver medal at the 2022 World Athletics Championships with a throw of . This was India's second ever medal at the World Athletics Championships after long-jumper Anju Bobby George's bronze in 2003. On 26 August, he registered another first place at the Athletissima at Lausanne with a throw of and qualified for the Diamond League final at Weltklasse Zürich. On 8 September, he won the final with a throw of and became the first Indian to win the Diamond League finals and qualified for the 2023 World Championships. In May 2023, he clinched top spot in the Doha Diamond League with a throw of . In the same month, he achieved the first position in the men's javelin throw rankings issued by World Athletics for the first time. In August 2023, he won the gold medal in 2023 World Athletics Championships with a throw of . He became the first Asian to win gold in the javelin throw event at the World Championships. In October 2023, he won his second Asian Games gold medal in the 2022 Asian Games with a season-best throw of .
At the Paris Olympics, in the qualification round, he scored his season best of 89.34 in his first throw to top the table. In the final, he recorded his only legitimate throw of 89.45 m in the second attempt. It snagged him the silver medal. With Chopra's gold at the 2020 Olympics, he became the fifth individual multiple medallist for India and first to win a gold and silver combination. He secured second place at the Lausanne meet, delivering a season-best throw of 89.49 meters. Chopra finished the season by finishing 2nd at the 2024 Diamond League.
Chopra's coaching under Klaus Bartonietz, from 2021 to 2024, resulted in several wins, titles, and gold medals. Since 2025, he is being coached by Jan Železný.
| 2010–2011 | Jaiveer Singh |
| 2011–2016 | Naseem Ahmed |
| 2016 | Kashinath Naik |
| 2016–2017 | Gary Calvert |
| 2018–2021 | Uwe Hohn |
| 2021–2024 | Klaus Bartonietz |
| 2024–present | Jan Železný |
| 2013 | World U18 Championships | Donetsk, Ukraine | 19th | 66.75 m | |
| 2015 | Asian Championships | Wuhan, China | 9th | 70.50 m | |
| 2016 | South Asian Games | Guwahati, India | 1st | 82.23 m | |
| 2016 | Asian U20 Championships | Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam | 2nd | 77.60 m | |
| 2016 | World U20 Championships | Bydgoszcz, Poland | 1st | 86.48 m | |
| 2017 | Asian Championships | Bhubaneswar, India | 1st | 85.23 m | |
| 2017 | World Championships | London, United Kingdom | 15th | 82.26 m | |
| 2018 | Commonwealth Games | Gold Coast, Australia | 1st | 86.47 m | |
| 2018 | Asian Games | Jakarta, Indonesia | 1st | 88.06 m | |
| 2021 | Olympic Games | Tokyo, Japan | 1st | 87.58 m | |
| 2022 | World Championships | Eugene, United States | 2nd | 88.13 m | |
| 2023 | World Championships | Budapest, Hungary | 1st | 88.17 m | |
| 2023 | Asian Games | Hangzhou, China | 1st | 88.88 m | |
| 2024 | Olympic Games | Paris, France | 2nd | 89.45m | |
| 2025 | World Championships | Tokyo, Japan | TBD | TBD |
| 2013 | 26 July | Thiruvananthapuram, India | 69.66 m | |
| 2014 | 17 August | Patiala, India | 70.19 m | |
| 2015 | 31 December | 81.04 m | ||
| 2016 | 23 July | Bydgoszcz, Poland | 86.48 m | WJR |
| 2017 | 2 June | Patiala, India | 85.63 m | |
| 2018 | 27 August | Jakarta, Indonesia | 88.06 m | |
| 2020 | 28 January | Potchefstroom, South Africa | 87.86 m | |
| 2021 | 5 March | Patiala, India | 88.07 m | |
| 2022 | 30 June | Stockholm, Sweden | 89.94 m | |
| 2023 | 4 October | Hangzhou, China | 88.88 m | |
| 2024 | 22 August | Lausanne, Switzerland | 89.49 m | |
| 2025 | 16 May | Doha, Qatar | 90.23 m |
Source: World Athletics
| Naib Subedar | Indian Army | 2016–2021 | ||
| Subedar | 2021–2024 | |||
| Subedar-major | 2024–2025 | |||
| Lieutenant Colonel | 2025–present |
| 2022 | Param Vishisht Seva Medal | ||
| Padma Shri | |||
| Vishisht Seva Medal | |||
| 75th Independence Anniversary Medal |
| 2021 | Army Sports Institute Stadium, Pune | Renamed Neeraj Chopra Stadium | By Rajnath Singh | |
| 2021 | Vogue India | Man of the Year | First Male Athlete To Star On The Cover | |
| 2022 | Switzerland | Appointed Indian Ambassador | ||
| 2025 | Track & Field News | Best Male Javelin Thrower | ||
| 2025 | World Athletics | Neeraj Chopra Classic | International Javelin Meet | |
| 2025 | Audi | Brand Ambassador |
| 2017 | Indian Sports Honours | Sportsman of the Year | ||
| Emerging Sportsman of the Year | ||||
| 2018 | Arjuna Award | Outstanding Performance in Sports and Games | ||
| 2019 | Indian Sports Honours | Sportsman of the Year | ||
| Spirit of Sport Honour | ||||
| 2021 | Khel Ratna Award | Spectacular Performance in the Field of Sports | ||
| Times of India Sports Awards | Male Athlete of the Year | |||
| 2022 | Padma Shri | Distinguished Contribution in Sports | ||
| Sportstar Awards | Sportstar of the Year Male | |||
| Sportstar of the Year Track and Field | ||||
| Indian of the Year Awards | Indian of the Year in Sports | |||
| 2023 | Sportstar Awards | Sportstar of the Year Male | ||
| Indian Sports Honours | Sportsman of the Year | |||
| Comeback of the Year | ||||
| Times of India Sports Awards | Male Athlete of the Year | |||
| Sportsperson of the Year | ||||
| World Athletics Awards | Athlete of the Year | |||
| 2024 | Indian of the Year Awards | Indian of the Year in Sports | ||
| Young Leaders Awards | Youth Icon of the Year | |||
| Indian Sports Honours | Sportsman of the Year | |||
| Sportstar Awards | Sportstar of the Year Male |
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Neeraj Chopra at the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics (archived)
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