This Thursday, at the 2026 Commonwealth Games, Indian sports fans were subject to a sight they hadn't seen for nine years -- Neeraj Chopra throwing more than once in qualifying for a big javelin throw event. It was unfamiliar, even uncomfortable, because it was a sign that something they had taken for granted all the years wasn't that anymore. In that challenging qualifying session, Neeraj didn't clear 80m once but did enough to make the final.
As Friday dawned, the worry grew. This was Neeraj in one of the most uncertain phases of his career yet, facing among the strongest javelin fields he's ever had to in his career, in only his second event since last September, with conditions far from ideal for javelin throwing... Could he win a medal again? Could he throw near his best again?
There were doubts, from even the most ardent Neeraj fans until...
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Throw 2, javelin released, back turned to the spear, arms held wide aloft, a roar let out
It was as if Neeraj was telling the world that he's still here, that the fire in him still burns, that he's still a master at eking out a big throw in the toughest of conditions. 85.83m. Season's best. Top of the early running. Neeraj Chopra is back; he's a threat to the whole field again.
One man, though, didn't get that memo. A young 23-year-old man from Kalutara in Sri Lanka's Western Province. A young man who has admitted to looking up to Neeraj (and Pakistan's 2024 Olympic champion Arshad Nadeem).
And on Friday, Ramesh Tharanga Pathirage stepped up to take Commonwealth Games gold right out of Neeraj's hands.
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Pathirage had entered the competition as the form javelin thrower in 2026. His monster 92.62m throw at the Rome Diamond League was easily the farthest anyone has thrown since the Paris Olympics. He had two other throws in excess of 89m this year, and one more past 88m. He was the man to beat, and in the end, nobody did beat him in Glasgow.
He finished top of qualifying, with a throw well within himself, and then with his second throw on the night of the final, unleashed the spear a distance of 89.75m. Neeraj had thrown the gauntlet down, Pathirage had taken it and thrown it right back at the Indian. 'What have you got, great man?'
As it turned out, not much, really. Neeraj tried, as he always does, but in his current physical shape and form, 89.75m was always going to be a few metres too far for him to get. It would've taken at least the third best throw of Neeraj's career to overhaul Pathirage on the night, and the Indian didn't have it in him.
When he finished 8th at the World Championships in Tokyo last year, Neeraj was clear when he said "aise toh chal nahi sakta na? (It can't go on like this, no?)". Now, ten months later, it's safe to say it's not gone on like that.
He had finished 26 events in a row in the top two until that night in Tokyo. In his comeback after that he'd finished fourth in the Doha Diamond League, but now he's back where he's always felt he belongs: the podium. Not where he likes it, because that's the top step, but for now, he must be pleased with his progress.
Meanwhile, Pathirage is now the third straight South Asian javelin champion in the Commonwealth Games, and it's another feather in the cap of a region that is now the nerve centre of world javelin. There were signs right from 2016 onwards, when Neeraj broke the junior world record, but this is the monster that, in many ways, Neeraj has created. Would Nadeem and Pathirage have achieved what they have without Neeraj preceding them? Perhaps, there's no way to go back in time and find out.
What is indisputable is that this fire was lit by Neeraj and that he has remained a common denominator across men's javelin ever since his Tokyo Olympics gold: On the greatest night of Nadeem's career, Neeraj was closest to him. On the greatest night yet of Pathirage's career, Neeraj is closest to him.
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That fire still burns in Neeraj, but that fire he lit also burned bright on this chilly Glasgow evening in his countryman Yash Vir Singh. The now 25-year-old first burst into national reckoning when he broke Neeraj's meet record at the Junior Federation Cup in 2021.
After winning that competition, one of the many congratulatory calls received was from Neeraj. Neeraj wasn't yet an Olympic champion at the time, but he had already won the Commonwealth Games and Asian Games in 2018. "This is only the start," Neeraj had told Yash Vir back then
Since then, Yash Vir has watched as Kishore Kumar Jena, DP Manu and Sachin Yadav made World Championship finals, as Jena pushed Neeraj all the way in an Asian Games final, as Rohit Yadav pushed himself into the 87s, as he himself continued to remain on the fringes of Indian javelin throw.
In Glasgow, it looked like another one of those events for Yash Vir. His first five throws didn't come close to threatening his personal best of 83.72m. But then, out of nowhere, Yash Vir did something special. 85.41m... from eight to third, in one throw, past Ben East, Rohit, Keshorn Walcott, Douw Smit and the great Anderson Peters. This was a dizzying, unfamiliar height at this level of competition for Yash Vir, so when he let out a primal roar and pumped his fists in celebration, it was truly a release of a man whose time in the spotlight had arrived.
Soon, Peters and Smit would fail in their attempts at beating him, and it was confirmed: India would have two medals from the men's javelin. One from the nation's greatest athlete ever, one from a young man who has been on the fringes for too long.
When Neeraj and Yash Vir flank Pathirage on the podium for the medal ceremony on Saturday, it will be a symbolic moment for all three of them. For Yash Vir, a breakthrough. For Pathirage, history for his country - a first gold medal in a multi-sports event. For Neeraj, a reminder that he won't let the last year define him, a reminder that champions are also defined by their ability to bounce back from adversity, a reminder that his legacy stands tall on the world's many javelin podiums.
They'll all go to battle again in just a couple of months, at the Asian Games in Japan. It's another final that promises to be a blockbuster. Rumesh Pathirage is going nowhere, Yash Vir Singh is going nowhere. Neeraj Chopra will be around too, with the flame within still burning.
