2023 World Athletics Championships – Men's javelin throw

The men's javelin throw at the 2023 World Athletics Championships was held at the National Athletics Centre in Budapest on 25 and 27 August 2023.

Summary
After winning two successive championships Anderson Peters was beaten up and badly injured by 5 crew members of a party boat. Peters was able return, but was only able to throw 78.49m in the preliminary round and didn't make the final. Across two previous competitions, only one of his throws had ever been less than 80m, three throws were over 90m. Jakub Vadlejch, the returning bronze medalist, came into the competition as the world leader for 2023 and the returning silver medalist, Olympic Champion Neeraj Chopra were both top qualifiers to the final.

Oliver Helander started things off with 83.38m, Vadlejch followed him with 82.59m. The first two throws of the competition would prove to be the first round leaders. Ihab Abdelrahman came out of the round in third place at 80.64m. Now that everybody was warmed up, the real throwing can begin in the second round. Vadlejch improved to 84.18m. Two throwers later, Chopra launched. He knew it was good, he turned to the crowd to celebrate and didn't even watch if fly. Near the end of the round Julian Weber tossed 85.79m to take over the second position. In the third round, Arshad Nadeem hit an 87.82m to put a scare into Chopra's lead. Nadeem's fourth round throw was also in the 87 metre range. In the fifth round, Vadlejch threw 86.67m to move into bronze position.

Chopra's win was the first Gold Medal at the World Championships for India. He was not alone as two other Indian competitors, Kishore Jena and D. P. Manu finished in fifth and sixth. Nadeem was the first ever medal for neighboring Pakistan. Even though the two countries have been sabre-rattling since their inception, the two men shared a congratulatory hug.

Records
Before the competition records were as follows:

Qualification standard
The standard to qualify automatically for entry was 85.20 m.

Schedule
The event schedule, in local time (UTC+2), is as follows:

Qualification
Qualification: Qualifying distance 83.00 (Q) or the 12 best athletes including ties (q) qualify to the final.

Final
The final started on 27 August at 20:16.