Indian sports fans should keep Neeraj Chopra’s adductors in mind and pray for him in the coming weeks.

The 25-year-old reigning Olympic men’s javelin champion has been struggling with recurring hip and groin problems for a number of years and plans to seek medical advice after the Paris Olympics.

Neeraj has only competed three times this year and withdrew after the Paavo Nurmi Games in Finland as a precaution after his adductors started acting up again.

It is hoped that the troublesome muscle will remain intact until the evening of August 8 at the Stade de Paris. By then, Neeraj will have completed his men’s javelin throw at the Paris Olympics and will hopefully be wearing a second Olympic medal around his neck.

India will send 30 athletes to the Paris Olympics, the largest contingent so far in any discipline, but Neeraj will be the centre of attention despite his less-than-perfect preparation.

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As the only Indian athlete to ever win a gold medal at the Olympics, he remains the country’s top contender for another podium finish.

Aside from injury concerns, the most important thing is how well he can handle the pressure. At the Tokyo Games, he didn’t come close to Germany’s Johannes Vetter, who was shooting throws of over 90 meters almost at will. Neeraj entered the competition with only the fourth-best throw of the year.

There’s no Vetter this time around — his season ended with a recurring elbow injury — but Neeraj still isn’t the automatic favorite. His best performance this year — 88.36m — is behind Max Dehning (90.20m), Jakub Vadlejch (88.65m) and Julian Weber (88.37m). Vadlejch also beat Neeraj in the Doha Diamond League earlier this season.

It is fair to say that the javelin competition at the Paris Games will be very evenly matched. Dehning has failed to match his 90m throw, while both Vadlejch and Weber are less than half a metre ahead of the Indian.

There is no shortage of challengers further down the field either: this season, 13 athletes passed the 85-meter mark.

Pakistan’s Arshad Nadeem, who won silver at the world championships in Budapest, has competed in just one event this season after returning from an injury last year. He finished fourth in the Paris Diamond League with a throw of 84.21 meters.

Should Neeraj be even slightly fit during the qualifying rounds or on the day of the final, he will always be confident of emerging as the winner.

But because he has to reach the final first, he will have to qualify quickly to reach the final without injury.

Besides Neeraj, India is trying to qualify as many athletes as possible for the finals of their respective events.

At the Tokyo Olympics, only two athletes — Neeraj and discus thrower Kamalpreet Kaur — made it to the heats and/or qualification rounds. This time, many more are expected.

Topping the list is 3000m steeplechaser Avinash Sable, who recently broke his own national record for the ninth time at the Paris Diamond League, clocking 8:09.91. The time made the 29-year-old the tenth fastest in the world this year and the ninth fastest among his potential Olympic opponents.

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There is a good chance that Sable will improve on his best performance in the heats in Paris, just as he did in Tokyo. He may also be injured after failing to qualify for the final of the World Championships in Budapest last year, where he was caught trying to coast in the heats. It is unlikely that he will make the same mistake twice.

Should Sable reach the final, it would be unwise to exclude him from a historic podium finish. Reigning world and Olympic champion Soufiane El Bakkali of Morocco (best season result 8.09.40) is far from his best.

While Ethiopia’s Lamecha Girma is doing well with 8:01.63, Sable will be keeping an eye on Abraham Kibiwot. The Kenyan took a surprising third place at the World Championships in Budapest with a time of 8:11.98 — a time Sable believes he can better.

Kenya has no shortage of fast runners. The 21-year-old Amos Serem (best performance of the season: 8.02.36) is also among the favorites for a podium place in Paris.

Other Indians aiming to reach the final in Paris include the men’s 4x400m relay team of Rajesh Ramesh, Muhammed Anas, Muhammed Ajmal and Amoj Jacob, who reached a historic final at the 2023 World Championships, setting a new national record of 2.59.05.

With this time they could reach an unprecedented final in Paris, even though they only clocked 3.03.23 at the Relay Worlds in the Bahamas.

While Anas and Ajmal are close to their times from last year, Amoj is on fire. Both he and Rajesh will have to reach their target.

Other possible finalists include Parul Chaudhary in the women’s 3000 metres steeplechase, Annu Rani (javelin thrower), Jeswin Aldrin (long jumper), Tajinderpal Singh Toor (shot putter), Kishore Jena (javelin thrower) and Praveen Chithravel and Abdulla Aboobacker (triple jumper).

Parul qualified for the final of the 2023 World Championships in Budapest, with a national record of 9:15.31s. A similar performance cannot be ruled out this time.

Annu (seasonal best throw: 60.68m) may only have the 34th best throw of the year, but she can throw big when needed. She did so last year at the Asian Games, where she surprisingly won gold.

National record holder Jeswin is a long way off his personal best this year, with a season best of 7.99m, but he has no injury worries and will be pushing himself to reach the final, just as he did at last year’s World Championships. The same goes for both Chithravel and Aboobacker.

While the latter cleared the 17m mark for the first time since the 2022 Commonwealth Games, Chithravel was just two centimetres behind at the Inter State Championships in June. If they can come close to that feat, they should make it to the final in Paris.

The Indian Athletics Team for the Paris 2024 Olympics:

Reserves

Prachi, Mijo Chacko Kurian