Sri Lanka’s Ramesh Tharangapathiraj produced the second best ever javelin throw by an Asian athlete, edging out both Chinese Taipei’s Chow Suncheng and Neeraj Chopra with an effort of 92.62m to win the Diamond League meet in Rome on Thursday. His throw is now only behind Arshad Nadeem’s Olympic gold-winning mark of 92.97m from Paris 2024 on the Asian all-time list. While Pathiraj grabbed the headlines, India’s Sachin Yadav Diamond had a tough league debut, finishing eighth in the 10-man field with a best throw of 79.18m.The 26-year-old’s effort was well short of his personal best of 86.27m, which he achieved while finishing fourth at the 2025 World Championships. He recorded a season’s best of 81.95m while finishing second at the Indian Athletics Series 3 in New Delhi in April.Yadav started with a foul and followed with throws of 79.18m, 77.02m, 76.62m and 75.54m. He finished eighth after five attempts. After the fifth round only the top three athletes were allowed the sixth and final throw.Pathiraj crossed the 90m mark for the first time in his career with a second round effort of 92.62m. This throw made him the second best Asian performer in history, surpassing Cheng’s 91.36m and Chopra’s 90.23m. He also became only the fourth Asian and the 28th athlete overall to throw beyond 90 metres.Sri Lanka entered the competition as the world season leader with 89.37m from the domestic event in March. Thursday’s win was also their first Diamond League title.The 2026 season has been a breakthrough year for Pithiraj. He finished second at the Rabat Diamond League on May 31 with 85.97m and earlier won the Cape Canoe Classic in Nairobi with 89.28m.For Yadav, the Rome event was his first international competition after finishing fourth at the 2025 World Championships.Two-time world champion and Paris Olympics bronze medalist Anderson Peters was second with 83.91m while American thrower Curtis Thompson was third with 83.89m.World champion Keshorn Walcott finished fourth with 83.45m.Chopra, who is training in Bayonne, Switzerland after a stint in Turkey, did not compete in Rome. It is not yet known when he will start his season.The next meeting of the Diamond League will be held on June 19 in Doha.
