Javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra created history by becoming the first Indian athlete to become a world champion when he won a gold medal at  the IAAF World under-20 athletics championship in Bydgoszcz, Poland,

• Chopra created a new U-20 world record by throwing the javelin a distance of 86.48m. The 18-year-old from Khandra village in Haryana’s Panipat district broke the old mark of 84.69 metres held by Latvian Zigismunds Sirmais by nearly two metres.

• Chopra’s mark is also a new national record. Chopra, who also became the first Indian athlete to set a world record at any level, bettered his previous personal best of 82.23 set at the South Asian Games earlier this year, which incidentally was the old national record.

• Chopra is only the third Indian athlete after discus throwers Seema Antil Punia a Bronze in 2002 and Navjeet Kaur Dhillon a Bronze in 2014 to have won a medal in the U-20 World Championships. He had also won the gold at the South Asian Games in Guwahati earlier this year with a personal best 82.23m, making him the world’s best junior thrower this season.

• South African Johan Grobler (80.59m) won the silver medal and Anderson Peters (79.65m) of Granada won the bronze medal