Neeraj Chopra to start season at Doha Diamond League 2026, Doha, Qatar; fourth straight Doha appearance

Neeraj Chopra to make much-awaited return to action at Doha Diamond League 2026

This will be the Indian javelin thrower’s fourth straight appearance in Doha. He breached the 90m mark at the same venue last year.

Indian javelin star Neeraj Chopra will start his athletics season at the Doha Diamond League 2026 in Qatar on Friday, after organisers confirmed his participation in the event in the entry list for competition released on Monday.

This will be Neeraj Chopra’s fourth consecutive appearance at the Doha leg of the Diamond League .

The two-time Olympic medallist won the 2023 edition of the Doha Diamond League with an 88.67m effort, logged 88.36m for second place in 2024 and produced a national record of 90.23m last year, only to finish runner-up behind Germany’s Julian Weber.

This will be the first competition of the 2026 athletics season for Neeraj Chopra, who was recovering from a back injury in an off-season training camp in Switzerland.

The Indian javelin throw ace was last seen in action at the World Athletics Championships 2025 in Tokyo in September.

The confirmation of Neeraj Chopra’s participation in the Diamond League comes after he was provisionally included in India’s 32-member athletics squad for the Commonwealth Games 2026 .

The Indian athlete ’s addition to the men’s javelin throw competition in Doha adds more quality to an already stacked field.

While Pakistan’s Olympic champion Arshad Nadeem has been withdrawn from the entry list after initially being named in the field, Sri Lanka’s Rumesh Pathirage, the current world leader, is set to compete in Doha.

Rumesh Pathirage heads into Doha after producing a stunning 92.62m throw at the Rome Diamond League earlier this month.

Pathirage’s monster throw in Rome elevated him to eighth on the world all-time list and the second-best in Asia behind Arshad Nadeem’s 92.97 at the Paris 2024 Olympics .

The javelin throw field at Doha Diamond League also includes reigning world champion Keshorn Walcott of Trinidad and Tobago and former world champions Anderson Peters of Grenada and Kenya’s Julius Yego.

USA’s Pan American Games gold medallist Curtis Thompson and Czechia’s Jakub Vadlejch, an Olympic and worlds silver medallist, are also named in the entry list.

The Doha meeting is the seventh stop of the 2026 Diamond League season, which concludes with the series final in Brussels on September 4 and 5.

Doha Diamond League 2026 men’s javelin throw entry list

Ahmed Sameh Mohamed Hussein (EGY)

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