All smiles and then some! Valerie Vili after winning the World Shot Put title (© Getty Images)
Osaka, JapanThe first thing that Valerie Vili did after it was confirmed that her last attempt in the shot had moved her from second to first, snatching the title from defending champion, Nadezhda Ostapchuk of Belarus, was to dance, arms aloft across the track to a television camera, and mouth, “I love you mum and dad.” It was a message that had to travel somewhat further than Vili’s homeland of New Zealand. As she explained at the press conference, “This was dedicated to my late mum and dad, my dad died recently, and my mum died just before the Sydney Olympics.”
Reluctant beginnings
Vili, 22 was a reluctant shot putter. As she puts it plainly, “I was the biggest kid in the school, back home in Auckland, and got thrown into it when I was 13. The teachers said to do it, and I did it. When I started breaking schools records, I got into it. And when my mum died when I was 15, it helped me cope with it, and got me through it.”
“It feels absolutely marvelous (to win),” she said. “Before the sixth attempt, my coach (former Commonwealth javelin silver medallist, Kirsten Hellier) told me, ‘You’ve got one more throw to prove yourself, where you come from, who you are. Do it for your father’. I didn’t know what it felt like to win a World title and now I know. The celebrations I had here in the stadium were just amazing. I just can’t wait to see my coach, my husband and the people who supported me”.
Also waiting for Vili after her victory was Kiwi team manager, Raylene Bates, who said that she would get her stomach pierced, and a belly-ring inserted if Vili won.
“I’ll be happy to do it,” said Bates, a former hammer thrower. “This’ll definitely go down big in New Zealand.”
Keeping Kiwi throwing momentum alive
Once famed for its middle distance runners, such as Jack Lovelock, Murray Halberg, Peter Snell and John Walker, it is now female field eventers keeping the silver fern of New Zealand flying. Beatrice Faumaina was World discus champion in Athens 1997, and now Vili has taken the Shot Put. There is another little sport that New Zealand is famous for, and the All-Black rugby team begins the World Cup soon as favourite to regain the title.
“Maybe this’ll knock the All-Blacks off the front page,” said Vili. “I’m very happy, I’m ecstatic, and the fact that I got an Oceania record while doing so was great too. I’m very happy to do this for my little country.” The victory makes Vili only the second athlete, after 400m hurdler Jana Pittman of Australia, to win IAAF titles at youth, junior, and now senior level.
Formerly Valerie Adams, Vili married New Caledonian discus thrower, Bertrand Vili, following her ninth place in the Olympic Games in Athens 2004. Her first senior title came at the Commonwealth Games in neighbouring Australia in March, 2006. The focus of course now will be on the Olympic Games in Beijing next year. But Vili refused to be drawn on her chances.
“Let’s just wait and see what happens next year.”
She said that the victory would not change her personally, although her profile is bound to be higher than when she was simply Commonwealth champion. “It won’t change my life, I’ll be a happier person. Valerie will still be Val, a happy chappie, a jokey person. This is a event dominated by East Europeans. I’m just happy to bring our small country from the other side of the world into it.”
Pat Butcher for the IAAF
