2023 World Athletics Championships – Men's javelin throw

After winning two successive championships Anderson Peters was involved in an incident where he ended up being beaten and badly injured by 5 crew members of a party boat.^[1] Peters was able to return, but threw 78.49m in the preliminary round and didn't make the final. Across two previous competitions, only one of his throws had ever been less than 80m, three throws were over 90m. Jakub Vadlejch, the returning bronze medalist, came into the competition as the world leader for 2023 and the returning silver medalist, Tokyo Olympic Champion Neeraj Chopra were top qualifiers to the final.

Oliver Helander started things off with 83.38m, Vadlejch followed him with 82.59m. The first two throws of the competition would prove to be the first round leaders. Ihab Abdelrahman came out of the round in third place at 80.64m. Now that everybody was warmed up, the real throwing can begin in the second round. Vadlejch improved to 84.18m. Two throwers later, Chopra launched 88.17 m (289 ft 3 in).^[2] He knew it was good, he turned to the crowd to celebrate and didn't even watch if fly. Near the end of the round Julian Weber tossed 85.79m to take over the second position. In the third round, Arshad Nadeem hit an 87.82m to put a scare into Chopra's lead. Nadeem's fourth round throw was also in the 87 metre range. In the fifth round, Vadlejch threw 86.67m to move into bronze position.

Chopra's win was the first Gold Medal at the World Championships for India.^[3] He was not alone as two other Indian competitors, Kishore Jena and D. P. Manu finished in fifth and sixth. Nadeem was the first ever medal for neighboring Pakistan. Even though the two countries have been sabre-rattling since their inception, the two men shared a congratulatory hug.^[4]

Before the competition records were as follows:^[5]

More information Record, Athlete & Nat. ...

Record	Athlete & Nat.	Perf.	Location	Date
World record	Jan Železný (CZE)	98.48 m	Jena, Germany	25 May 1996
Championship record		92.80 m	Edmonton, Canada	12 August 2001
World Leading	Jakub Vadlejch (CZE)	89.51 m	Turku, Finland	13 June 2023
African Record	Julius Yego (KEN)	92.72 m	Beijing, China	26 August 2015
Asian Record	Cheng Chao-tsun (TPE)	91.36 m	Taipei City, Taipei	26 August 2017
North, Central American and Caribbean record	Anderson Peters (GRN)	93.07 m	Doha, Qatar	13 May 2022
South American Record	Edgar Baumann (PAR)	84.70 m	San Marcos, United States	17 October 1999
European Record	Jan Železný (CZE)	98.48 m	Jena, Germany	25 May 1996
Oceanian record	Jarrod Bannister (AUS)	89.02 m	Brisbane, Australia	29 February 2008

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The standard to qualify automatically for entry was 85.20 m.^[6]

The event schedule, in local time (UTC+2), was as follows: