Neeraj Chopra will miss the Asian Games 2026 after suffering a ligament tear during training.
The injury brought his 2026 season to an early end.
India’s javelin challenge now rests on Rohit Yadav and Yash Vir Singh.
India have won javelin gold at the last two Asian Games, both via Chopra.
Rohit Yadav and Yash Vir Singh will try to continue that streak in his absence.
Neeraj Chopra will miss the Games after a ligament tear during training ended his 2026 season early.
India have won javelin gold at each of the previous two Asian Games: Neeraj Chopra at Jakarta 2018 and again at Hangzhou 2023.
Rohit Yadav enters the competition in strong form, with a personal best of 87.68m thrown in Bhubaneswar in August.
That mark is the second-best season throw among the 14 athletes entered in the event, behind only Sri Lanka’s Rumesh Tharanga.
Yash Vir Singh has also recorded his career-best mark this year, a personal best of 85.41m at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in July.
Yash Vir Singh won bronze at the Commonwealth Games with that throw.
The main challengers to India’s gold include Rumesh Tharanga of Sri Lanka and Arshad Nadeem of Pakistan.
Rohit Yadav has said he cannot take Neeraj Chopra’s place but will try for an Asian Games medal in his own right.
The javelin throw final was one of the headline events on the Asian Games athletics schedule for September 28.
India’s javelin programme has grown significantly since Neeraj Chopra’s Olympic gold in Tokyo in 2021, with a deeper pool of competitive throwers emerging.
The Asian Games 2026 are being held in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, from September 19 to October 4.
India has won medals across multiple sports at these Games, including cricket, hockey, shooting and squash.
The men’s javelin throw final typically features eight to twelve finalists after a qualification round.
Javelin throw (representative image), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Discover more from Times Release
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.