Haruka Kitaguchi and Neeraj Chopra (© AFP / Getty Images)
Women's javelin
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Heading into last year’s World Championships, Kelsey-Lee Barber looked an outside shot to retain her title, standing 25th on the 2022 world list with a season’s best of 61.40m. The Australian proceeded to rip up the form book and become the first back-to-back winner in the women’s javelin, nailing gold with 66.91m.
For good measure, she then won the Commonwealth title in Birmingham, edging out her teammate Mackenzie Little with a throw of 64.43m. This year, the double golden girl has been shy of a Midas touch, finishing outside the top spot in six outings.
The 31-year-old was beaten by Little at the Australian Championships in Brisbane in April and on the Diamond League circuit she has finished sixth in Lausanne and seventh in Silesia. A flash of encouraging form came in Paris in June when she finished runner-up to Japan’s Haruka Kitaguchi (65.09m) with 62.54m.
That is 1.14m farther than her best before Oregon and good enough for No.10 on the 2023 list, 15 places higher than a year ago, so perhaps it would be ill-advised to bank on Barber failing to rise to the big occasion again and becoming the first three-time winner of the women’s javelin.
Kelsey-Lee Barber in the javelin at the World Athletics Championships Oregon22 (© Getty Images)
On form, Kitaguchi is the marginal favourite. In Oregon last year she earned bronze, Japan’s first medal in a women’s throwing event, behind Barber and the US veteran Kara Winger, who has since retired. The 2015 world U18 champion moved from third to first on the 2023 world list when she uncorked a national record of 67.04m in the final round at the Silesia Diamond League meeting on 16 July. With four of the best eight throws of the year, the 25-year-old has shown the most consistency, too.
Sigrid Borge stands second on the 2023 list but the four-time Norwegian champion has been unable to get anywhere close to the 66.50m she threw in Halle in May, her next best of 60.31m only good enough for sixth in the Silesia Diamond League meeting. She placed 11th in Paris and eighth in Lausanne.
Little is next on the list, having added almost a metre and a half to her PB to win ahead of Kitaguchi in Lausanne with 65.70m. With three of the top nine throws, the Commonwealth silver medallist has also found a high level of consistency.
Third in Lausanne was Lina Muze-Sirma, silver medallist at the World U20 Championships in Moncton back in 2010. Sixth in the final in Oregon last year, the 30-year-old is fourth on the 2023 world list, having thrown 64.78m in winning the Latvian title on 29 July.
Austrian champion Victoria Hudson threw 64.05m at Eisenstadt in May and placed fifth in her one Diamond League appearance of the year, in Lausanne.
Of the young guns of the event, Greece’s European champion and 2021 world U20 silver medallist Elina Tzengko has thrown 63.65m, and her fellow 20-year-old Anni-Linnea Alanen of Finland 62.47m. In between them on the world list lie New Zealander Tori Peeters (63.26m) and Latvia’s Anete Kocina (62.75m), while China’s three-time medal winner Lyu Huihui, now 34, has a season’s best of 62.35m.
Serbia’s 19-year-old Adriana Vilagos threw a 63.52m PB to retain the world U20 title last year in Cali and has a season’s best of 61.87m from her fourth-place finish in Lausanne.
Barber and Little are backed up on the Australian team by 41-year-old Kathryn Mitchell, sixth in the last three Olympic finals, who threw 61.84m at Eisenstadt in Austria on 26 July.
Men's javelin
Timetable | world rankings | 2023 world list | world all-time list | how it works
To date, Jakub Vadlejch has competed at 13 major championships at global and continental level. At the 14th time of asking, could it finally be his moment to hit the bullseye? The 2023 form book would suggest that there is a pretty good chance.
The 32-year-old pride of the Dukla Prague club that once boasted the imperious Czech king of distance running, Emil Zatopek, is the world leader thanks to a 89.51m throw at the Paavo Nurmi Games in Turku on 13 June. He also boasts the year’s fourth and fifth best throws, 88.63m and 88.38m, and finished his preparations for his sixth World Championships with a victory in the Monaco Diamond League meeting on 21 July.
Vadlejch won with 85.95m in Monte Carlo ahead of Julian Weber’s 84.23m, his third victory in four head-to-heads this year against the German who snatched the European title from his grasp in Munich twelve months ago. He also got the better of Anderson Peters, the Grenadian who retained the world title in Oregon last year, for the fourth time in four encounters in 2023.
Jakub Vadlejch in the javelin at the World Championships London 2017 (© Getty Images)
It is six years now since Vadlejch came close to claiming the world title that his long-time coach and mentor Jan Zelezny captured in 1993, 1995 and 2001. In London in 2017 he was beaten by 16cm by Weber’s former German teammate Johannes Vetter. He also took Olympic silver in Tokyo behind India’s Neeraj Chopra, and world bronze in Oregon in 2022, behind Peters and Chopra.
Peters headed to Oregon last year as the clear favourite and was a class apart in the final, landing three 90m-plus throws. In 2023 his form has been fitful as he seeks to emulate Zelezny as a three-time world champion.
He stands sixth on the world list with 85.88m, which he threw for third place behind Chopra (88.67m) and Vadlejch (88.63) in the opening Diamond League meeting in Doha on 5 May. Fifth in Ostrava and Lausanne and fourth in Monaco, he has only won once on the European circuit, in Dessau in June.
On form, Weber and Chopra look to be the biggest threats to Vadlejch.
Weber stands second on the world list with the 88.72m throw that won him the German title in Kassel on 8 July and beat Vadlejch in Lausanne, finishing runner up to Chopra. Having filled fourth place in Oregon last year and at the Tokyo Olympics, the man from Mainz will be on a global medal mission in Budapest.
Chopra’s winning throw in Lausanne, 88.67m, puts him third on the world list. In fact, the Olympic champion heads to Hungary with an unbeaten record, the Diamond League in Doha having been his only other competition in 2023.
Aside from Vadlejch, Weber, Chopra and Peters, three other potential podium contenders have ventured beyond 85 metres.
Nine-time Belgian champion Timothy Herman threw 88.67m at the Kip Keino Classic in Nairobi back on 13 May but has managed a best of only 81.67m since then. The Finn Oliver Helander, eighth in Oregon last year, threw 87.32m as runner-up to Vadlejch in Turku.
Keshorn Walcott, the 2012 Olympic champion from Trinidad and Tobago, threw 85.85m at Kuortane on 17 June and took third place behind Vadlejch and Weber in Monaco.
Hungary has yet to produce a medal winner in the event but the home crowd in the magnificent new National Athletics Centre will get the chance to see a potential podium contender, of the near future if not quite the present, in Gyorgy Herczeg.
On 9 August, the day after his 19th birthday, the dynamic teenager claimed the European U20 title in Jerusalem. His winning throw was 79.45m – modest in comparison with the monster effort of 84.98m that he unleashed in the World Athletics Continental Tour Bronze meeting at Eisenstadt in Austria on 26 July.
It eclipsed the European U20 record of 84.69m held since 2011 by Latvia’s Zigismunds Sirmais that had stood since 2011. It was also a Hungarian record and the second farthest ever by an U20 athlete, bettered only by Chopra's 86.48m from the 2016 World U20 Championships.
Simon Turnbull for World Athletics
