Neeraj Chopra has become the first Indian to win a Commonwealth Games gold medal in javelin throw category. The 20-year-old Haryana boy set a seasonal best score of 86.47 to push Hamish Peacock of Australia and Anderson Peters of Grenada to second and third place respectively. This is the third gold medal for India in athletics at Commonwealth Games 2018 after Seema Puni and Navjeet Dhillon bagged silver and bronze medal respectively in men’s discus throw event.

India have got off to a fantastic start on Day 11 of Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games. The day began with boxing star MC Mary Kom winning the first gold medal in women’s lightweight (45-49 kg) category. She added gold to India’s medal count on her Commonwealth Games debut. Later, shooter Sanjeev Rajput, boxer Gaurav Solanki and wrestler Sumit Malik added three more gold medals in their respective events.

And now Neeraj Chopra, the young blood from Haryana has achieved the feat in athletics, a sporting discipline India is still in process to leave an impact. He becomes the only fifth player in athletics to win a gold medal at CWG after   after Milkha Singh, Krishna Poonia, Women's 4x400 relay & Vikas Gowda.

Neeraj was joined in by Vipin Kashana, another Indian athlete who finished at the fifth place in Men's Javelin Throw Final event. India’s medal tally in CWG 2018 now moves to 49 out of which 22 are gold, 13 silver and 14 bronze. India is third on the GC 2018 medal table and team standings behind Australia and England.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 14, 2018 11:27 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).