WCH Tokyo 25 facts and figures: men's javelin

Last three sets of World Athletics Championships medallists

2023: 1 Neeraj Chopra (IND) – 88.17m, 2 Arshad Nadeem (PAK) – 87.82m, 3 Jakub Vadlejch (CZE) – 86.67m
2022: 1 Anderson Peters (GRN) – 90.54m, 2 Neeraj Chopra (IND) – 88.13m, 3 Jakub Vadlejch (CZE) – 88.09m
2019: 1 Anderson Peters (GRN) – 86.89m, 2 Magnus Kirt (EST) – 86.21m, 3 Johannes Vetter (GER) – 85.37m

Last two sets of Olympic medallists

Longest winning throws in World Athletics Championships history:

Jan Železný (CZE) – 92.80m (2001)
Julius Yego (KEN) – 92.72m (2015)
Anderson Peters (GRN) – 90.54m (2022)

Shortest winning jump in World Athletics Championships history

Seppo Räty (FIN) – 83.54m (1987)

Best marks on Japanese soil:

92.12m 1 Jan Železný (JPN) - Tokyo 15.09.1995
90.82m 1 Kimmu Kinnunen (FIN) - Tokyo (World Championships) 26.08.1991
90.60m 1 Jan Železný (CZE) - Osaka 11.05.1996

Best marks on Asian soil

93.90m 1 Thomas Rohler (GER) - Doha 05.05.2017
93.07m 1 Anderson Peters (GRN) - Doha 13.05.2022
92.72m 1 Julius Yego (KEN) - Beijing (World Championships) 26.08.2015

Biggest winning margins

3.88m 1983: Detlef Michel (GDR) – 89.48m, Tom Petranoff (USA) – 85.60m
3.73m 2015: Julius Yego (KEN) – 92.72m, Ihab Abdelrahman (EGY) – 88.99m
3.28m 1995: Jan Železny (CZE) – 89.58m, Steve Backley (GBR) – 86.30m

​​Smallest winning margins

0.10m 2013: Vítězslav Veselý (CZE) – 87.17m, Tero Pitkämäki (FIN) – 87.07m
0.16m 2017: Johannes Vetter (GER) – 89.89m, Jakub Vadlejch (CZE) – 89.73m
0.23m 2003: Sergey Makarov (RUS) – 85.44m, Andrus Varnik (EST) – 85.17m

Best mark by round

Qualification — 91.20 Johannes Vetter (GER), 2017
Final — 92.80 Jan Železný (CZE), 2001

Multiple winners

1993/95/01 - Jan Železný (CZE)
2019/22 - Anderson Peters (GRN)

Winners by country

4 - Finland
4 - Czechia
2 - Germany 
2 - Grenada
1 - German Democratic Republic
1 - South Africa
1 - Russia
1 - Estonia
1 - Norway
1 - Kenya
1 - India

Five historic facts

• There have been five 90 metre-plus winning performances in World Championships history
• Both the 1991 and 2007 World Championships in Tokyo and Osaka respectively saw 90 metre-plus winning throws: Kimmo Kinnunen (FIN) with 90.82m and Tero Pitkämäki (FIN) with 90.33m
• Neeraj Chopra (IND) created history by winning India’s first ever gold medal in World Championships history in 2023
• Arshad Nadeem (PAK) won Pakistan’s first ever medal at the World Championships in any event with silver in 2023
• 66 of 67 Kenya’s gold medals in World Championships history have been won in track or road events…except for Julius Yego’s gold medal in the javelin in Beijing in 2015

Potential storylines

• Can Neeraj Chopra (IND) become just the third athlete to successfully defend this title in World Championships history?
• Can Chopra join a growing list of athletes (Crouser, Jepchirchir, Allman, Duplantis, Kipyegon, Moon etc) to win gold medals at both the 2020 Olympic Games and 2025 World Championships
• Can Olympic champion Arshad Nadeem (PAK) become Pakistan’s first ever world champion in any event?
• Can Anderson Peters (GRN) match Jan Železný’s haul of three world titles in the men’s javelin?
• Can Julian Weber (GER) become the third German winner of this title since 2011?
• The final is comprised of 11 athletes from 12 nations and five continental areas. India is the only nation to have two finalists (Chopra and Sachin Yadav)
• Rumesh Tharanga Pathirage (SRI) becomes the first male athlete from Sri Lanka to make a World Championships final in any event