Neeraj Chopra set to resume Olympic build-up at Paavo Nurmi Games in Finland
Turku/Finland (PTI): Forced into a short break to mend a niggle, Olympic and world champion javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra will return to competitive action at the Paavo Nurmi Games here on Tuesday against a stellar field, hoping to continue his build-up to Paris Games with renewed vigour.
The 26-year-old superstar, the lone Indian in the field here, will be up against German teenage sensation Max Dehning, who is the youngest member of the coveted 90m club, which Chopra is aspiring to enter.
The 19-year-old is being seen as a major competition for Chopra when he defends his Tokyo Games gold medal in Paris.
Local favourite Oliver Helander, who had beaten the Indian in the 2022 edition of the one-day competition, will also be there.
The Indian won a silver medal in 2022 with a throw of 89.30m, which was a personal best at that time. Chopra improved that mark to 89.94m at the Stockholm leg of the Diamond League in the same year.
Two-time world champion Anderson Peters of Grenada and 2012 Olympic champion Keshorn Walcott of Trinidad and Tobago are in fray as well here.
Chopra had withdrawn from last month's Ostrava Golden Spike as a precautionary measure after he "felt something in my adductor (group of muscles located on inner thighs)"
He began his season at the Doha Diamond League in May, where he finished second with his final throw of 88.36m, the ninth best mark of his career.
Jakub Vadlejch, who beat Chopra in the Doha Daimond League will not be competing here.
Chopra also participated at the National Federation Cup Senior Athletics Championships in Bhubaneswar, where he secured the gold medal with an underwhelming effort of 82.27m.
After the Paavo Nurmi Games, Chopra will next be seen in action at the Paris Diamond League on July 7.
He has opted out of the National Inter-State Athletics in Panchkula to be held from June 27 to avoid a hectic schedule ahead of the Olympics.
"Further competition schedule will be decided later according to situation and my body. Otherwise, I will go to Paris from there (after competing in Turku)," Chopra had stated after the Federation Cup.
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Mamata’s allegations on Bengal SIR baseless, exaggerated: BJP's Suvendu
Kolkata (PTI): Leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, on Sunday termed Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's allegations over the ongoing SIR in the state as "baseless and exaggerated", and accused her of trying to derail the electoral roll revision exercise for political reasons.
In a post on X, Adhikari also said he has written to Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, and claimed that the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls was "exposing the rot in the voter lists - bogus entries, duplicates, and infiltrators that have been nurtured under the TMC's watch for years".
The BJP leader alleged that the SIR exercise was "damaging the TMC's electoral prospects", and that's why the CM was resorting to hysteria".
Banerjee had on Saturday written to the CEC, alleging that the ongoing SIR of electoral rolls has been turned into an exercise to exclude voters rather than correct records.
In her third letter to Kumar since the beginning of SIR, the chief minister accused the Election Commission of "political bias, insensitivity, and high-handedness" during the exercise.
“I would again reiterate that her claims are nothing but a desperate attempt to derail this crucial process, which is exposing the rot in our voter lists - bogus entries, duplicates and infiltrators that have been nurtured under TMC’s watch for years,” Adhikari alleged in the post.
In his letter to the CEC, dated January 10, the leader of the opposition described the chief minister’s objections as a “politically motivated attempt” to obstruct the SIR and termed the ECI’s move as "essential to ensure free, fair and transparent" elections in the state.
"The chief minister’s portrayal of this exercise as ‘unplanned, insensitive and inhuman’ is nothing short of a gross exaggeration, blown out of proportion to create public hysteria and shift focus from her government’s failures," the BJP leader alleged.
He claimed that the SIR exercise had "exposed vulnerabilities in the electoral rolls that threatened the ruling party’s electoral prospects", triggering what he termed “unfounded outbursts” from the state administration.
On December 16, the Election Commission published the draft electoral rolls after the first phase of the SIR, with the electorate dropping from 7.66 crore to 7.08 crore following the deletion of over 58 lakh names.
The second phase, which began on December 27, involves hearings of 1.67 crore electors under scrutiny, including 1.36 crore flagged for logical discrepancies and 31 lakh whose records lack mapping.
The LoP urged the Election Commission to continue the voter list revision exercise with diligence, asserting that the SIR is a routine constitutional process and should not be politicised.
