Will the Tokyo runway track, which is same as from Olympics 2021, prove lucky for Neeraj Chopra again?

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Paris three years later, ended up being the first Olympic Games where four men threw over 88 metres or better. Czechia’s Jakub Vadlejch threw 88.50m and still missed out on a medal in fourth place.

As it turned out Johannes Vetter who flopped at Tokyo after being tipped for gold, was consulted to bring about javelin-specific changes in Paris. The track with sustainable sea-shell composites reflected in the distances achieved.

But will reverting to Tokyo, tilt the advantage towards Chopra? He will no doubt need to hurl an almighty effort to get past a strong field in 2025. But the defending champion, a rotational thrower rather than a power one, will hope his consistency and experience, can haul him past the big ones, on a track that’s neutral to all throwers an offers no specific advantages.

Here’s an Explainer on what changed between Tokyo 2021 to Budapest 2023 (where Chopra won gold on new surface) and onto Paris 2024 (where Nadeem made good use of the help).

The loading funnel run-up tracks though remain the same for all throwers. But how the surface is leveraged, can prove decisive, besides their own effort.

What is the 2025 track like?

As per Mondo website, the one used now is same as Olympics 2021 at Tokyo. ‘The track was specifically developed for the 2020 Olympic Games – which were eventually held the following year due to the global pandemic – in a unique shade of red before being constructed and installed between August and November 2019….To maximize the speed of athletes and improve their performance, the track fuses two sperate layers through a process that guarantees continuous, seamless material. The vulcanized rubber top layer is designed to optimise grip and elasticity under any conditions while the air-filled cavities of the lower layer are responsible for shock absorption, energy storage and an immediate kinetic response. The result is a solid layer with optimised elasticity and deformability which, in turn, guarantees a uniform dynamic response that supports athletes in controlling their pace, rhythm and stability of movement,’ Mondo wrote.

Why were Tokyo 2021 and Paris 2024 different?

The javelin tracks in Tokyo and Paris were essentially similar in their requirements, but the Paris track surface was slathered with enhanced features by Mondo. ‘These included improved abrasion resistance, elongation, and an increased elastic modulus for better performance. This design led to significantly better throwing performances in Paris compared to Tokyo; the gold medal performance for men’s javelin in Paris was better than the Tokyo equivalent, indicating a faster and more responsive track surface in Paris,’ the Games media quoted.

The Paris track added a honeycomb-like air cell design for better energy return, which was considered superior to the track used in Tokyo. Half of the throwing gold medals were better than those in Tokyo, a trend that was even more pronounced in running events at the Mondotrack with Ellipse Impulse Technology in the Stade de France.

Neeraj Chopra at the 2024 Paris Olympics. (AP)

Why did Mondo focus on javelin at Paris?

The Mondo website explained: ‘What many people don’t know – and maybe will be amazed to realise – is that, for the first time ever at an Olympic Games, one event got special singular attention from Mondo: the javelin. The javelin runways were specially adapted to meet the needs of the world’s top exponents of this event. Mondo Sport & Flooring Research and Development Director Andrea Marenghi said, “During and after the previous Olympic Games in Tokyo – where Mondo once again provided the athletics track – some javelin throwers were a little bit unsatisfied about their performance. Of course, the material we used at the time on the javelin runways was exactly the same as we used for the rest of the track and previously we had never considered developing a specific material for the javelin or any other event for the simple reason that the World Athletics regulations stated that the material has to be the same in every area of the stadium. However, we started to evaluate in the laboratory what can we do to improve the performance of the track that the javelin throwers use. This all started in 2022 once the competitors in Tokyo had made their feelings known.”

What had Mondo said about the 2021 tracks?

On their website, Marenghi narrated how Johannes Vetter had a part to play in how Paris got made. “Many of the javelin throwers were finding their feet were moved several centimetres when they blocked at the end of the throw, and we were asked if we are able to design a material able to reduce this movement to less than one centimetre. In December 2023, World Athletics introduced an amendment to the composition of the stress areas, admitting materials with different tensile strengths. We had a green light to use the new material in official athletics competitions. Germany’s Johannes Vetter coach Boris Obergföll inspired most of our work, Johannes was perhaps the most unhappy with his performance in Tokyo having been among the favourites for the title, but he finished ninth. (Athletics International commented: “There was no hotter favourite at the Games than Johannes Vetter. Super-athlete though he is, Vetter is still a human being, not a machine, and in Tokyo everything unravelled.”)

What modifications did Paris show?

Mondo got Vetter in and then sent him some of the athletics track prototypes to try out. Thomas Röhler, Germany’s 2016 Olympic and 2018 European champion, was another athlete who was consulted a lot. “Mondo have had a relationship over several years with him and we sent him various materials to test. We did the work in the laboratory between September 2021 and March 2022 and then we sent the first prototypes to be tested by these two guys in April 2022.
We then sent the materials to Kuortane in Finland to be tested by athletes and after a successful trial and some further small modifications, we were ready to install the track in the National Stadium in Budapest ahead of the 2023 World Athletics Championships,” Mondo representative wrote.

Chopra, of course won gold at Budapest, displaying his adaptability.

What mechanical properties of the track changed?

“The three key properties of the athletics track we improved upon for the javelin throwers was the abrasion resistance, which is how much wear from the throwers the track is able to withstand; the elongation to break, which represent its elasticity; and we increase the elastic modulus, the property that represent how much the material is able to resist to specific stresses. Additionally, at Mondo we have introduced another parameter which is not required by World Athletics regulations: the resistance to tearing, that help us to evaluate the interaction between the athletics surface and athlete’s spikes. Mondo athletics tracks are installed with two layers. The top layer is the mechanical resistance part, and the bottom layer is the ‘elastic part’. We introduced an optimal compound for both layers to keep a minimum level of the elasticity but to maximize the mechanical resistance because in the javelin the people use very long – often 12 millimetres – spikes but the mechanical resistant layer was less than that length.”

Why were Mondo thrilled?

‘Pakistan’s Arshad Nadeem improved the Olympic record by more than two meters with his winning throw of 92.97m. It was an Asian record and earned his country’s first athletics gold medal’, the website noted. “It was the first Olympic Games where four men threw over 88 metres or better. Czechia’s Jakub Vadlejch threw 88.50m and still missed out on a medal in fourth place,” Mondo said. For the first time in any competition, seven men threw over 86 metres and it was the first javelin competition ever where eight men threw over 84 metres. The Paris javelin competition saw the best results ever for places 5-8,” Marenghi wrote.

What is expected from Tokyo 2025?

It’s a different event, in a different phase of the year (September), and the likes of Nadeem, Julian Weber, Vadlejch and Anderson Peters are considerably stronger. Even Chopra struck 90 at Doha, so he’s right in the mix. But as always tail winds, head winds, their season rhythm mental fortitude and fighting abilities will come into the picture. How they respond to each other’s big throws, will play a crucial role. But the underwriting, underneath will be that Tokyo track, which is of 2021 vintage, and will retain some of its original character.

Advantage Neeraj Chopra? Not necessarily. But Paris should not really cast a shadow on which way results in Tokyo drift towards.