India’s spearhurling ace, Neeraj Chopra, has emerged as the favoured contender to clinch the javelin throw gold tomorrow and defend his Olympic Games title that he won in Tokyo three years ago.

True to form, Chopra uncorked a massive opening throw and qualified for the final of here yesterday as the best of the twelve qualifiers.

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Chopra, the world number two, vowed the near-capacity crowd with his brilliant first effort of 89.34 metres, which was well beyond the qualifying mark of 84 metres at the imposing Stade de France.

The excellent effort also put Chopra well in front of all other competitors in the two-group qualification stage and this has marked him as the man to beat by his other rivals.

The 26-year-old, six-footer, however expected the competition to be stiff in the final which is likely to be held in cooler conditions than the qualification rounds.

He also expected cooler conditions during the evening final on August 8.

“The conditions will be a bit cool in the evening. The final will be a tough competition,” he said in the mixed zone after his qualification round got over.

Chopra’s throw bettered his earlier second-best effort of 89.30m that he achieved on June 14, 2022 in Finland at the Paavo Nurmi Games.

His top effort today, the best out of all competitors in both Group A and Group B, was also better than his gold-winning throw of 87.59m in the last Olympics in Tokyo, giving him an edge over rivals.

It exceeded his world championship title-winning hurl of 88.17m in Budapest last year, but was still short of his personal best effort of 89.94m that he came up with in Stockholm, Sweden, on June 14, 2022.

It’s also the Indian army man’s season’s best throw, easily overshadowing his 88.37m done in May in Qatar.

His main rivals will be Anderson Peters of Grenada (88.63), Julian Weber of Germany (87.76m) and world no 1 Jakub Vadlejch of Czechia (85.63).

Chopra has trained near the German border in the northeast of France before turning up here.

“I was there for two weeks in Strasbourg. It was raining for the second week. We did one training session there and it was good. I really liked it there,” he said yesterday.

If Chopra defends his Tokyo title successfully he will the first Indian athlete to have won two individual Olympic gold medals.

Only male hockey players have won more than one gold medal so far in Indian colours.