Neeraj Chopra among Paris Olympics athletes whose competition artefacts added to World Athletics Heritage Collection
Neeraj Chopra, Paris 2024 Olympics silver-medallist and Ukraine’s Yaroslava Mahuchikh, World Athletics women’s field event athlete of the year are among the 23 athletes whose competition artifacts were inducted into the World Athletics Heritage Collection.
The Museum of World Athletics (MOWA) will feature the athletes’ artefacts in the online 3D platform from Thursday.
“Thank you to the athletes who have so kindly donated their competition clothing, shoes and even medals to our museum’s collection in 2024,” said World Athletics President Sebastian Coe.
“This year we have received historic Olympic winning items from two icons of the 1960s, Wyomia Tyus and Billy Mills, and from 1980 Olympic 100m champion Allan Wells, plus the 2000 and 2008 Olympic heptathlon gold medallists, respectively Denise Lewis and Nataliia Dobrynska.
“Keeping our Olympic collection up to date, we are proud today to be announcing donations from a trio of Paris 2024 medallists: Yaroslava Mahuchikh, Thea LaFond and Neeraj Chopra.
Mahuchikh broke the long-standing world high jump record with a leap of 2.10m at the Paris Diamond League in the Stade Charlety in July and went on to win the Olympic title in the Stade de France in August.
She has donated her Paris Olympic singlet, name bib and shorts to the MOWA. Mahuchikh presented these items to Coe while attending the World Athletics Awards 2024 in Monaco.
LaFond, who won the Olympic triple jump title in Paris with a 15.02m national record to become Dominica’s first Olympic medallist in any sport, has given to the collection the crop top she wore when winning her Paris gold medal.
In 2024, LaFond was also crowned world indoor champion, winning that title with what was then a national record leap of 15.01m.
Neeraj, who won India’s first Olympic title in athletics when he got javelin gold at the Tokyo Games, has donated the competition T-shirt he wore in Paris 2024.
With his second round throw of 89.45m, Chopra secured the silver medal behind Arshad Nadeem , who threw an Olympic record of 92.97m.