Injured Neeraj pulls out of Paavo Nurmi Games

NEW DELHI: Recovering from a muscle strain which he had sustained last month, Indian javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra has pulled out of the prestigious Paavo Nurmi Games, scheduled to be held at Turku in Finland on Tuesday (June 13).

The event organiser said that the reigning Olympic champion had informed it about the “cancellation” of his participation in the World Athletics Continental Tour gold-level event due to “health issues”.

“Javelin Olympic champion Neeraj Chopra cancelled his participation in the Paavo Nurmi Games. Chopra’s manager messaged the competition organisers that the athlete has health problems, which is why the (his) competition had to be cancelled,” said a statement on the Finnish Athletics Federation website.

“Of course, peak cancellations are always upsetting. At the moment, there seems to be quite a few 90m javelin throwers from recent years who are injured. Chopra’s second-best result of all-time is from Turku last summer and he was certainly looking forward to the competition at least as much as we were,” said Jari Salonen, CEO of PN Turku Oy, which organises the Paavo Nurmi Games.

On May 29, Neeraj had issued a statement on social media that he had suffered a muscle strain during training and was pulling out of the FBK Games (June 4) at Hengelo in the Netherlands as a precautionary measure.

With the World Championships in Budapest, Hungary, two months away (August 19 to 27), it is not yet clear when Neeraj will return to action.