Barbora Spotakova - Javelin gold medallist (© Getty Images)
The 2007 World champion is the world season leader in 2008. Czech Barbora Špotáková, 27, whose 69.15m release in Zaragoza, Spain on 31 May makes her the fourth furthest thrower of all-time, would seem to be a sure bet to add the Olympic laurels to the World crown already in her possession.
With the exception of her loss to European record holder Christina Obergföll of Germany in Ostrava on 12 June (67.72 to 66.91), Špotáková has had a perfect year.
Her national record throw in Zaragoza added over two metres to her previous best which she had thrown when winning the World Athletics Final in Stuttgart last summer. And for all but a 10cm foot-fault at the Czech champs in Tábor on 4 July, Špotáková would have become the world’s third thrower over 70m since the inception of the ‘new’ model spear at the end of the last century.
The world’s two 70m javelin throwing women will also be in the fray for medals in Beijing.
Obergföll (PB is 70.20) has a season’s best of 67.72m which, as already has been mentioned, allowed her to defeat the World champion this year in Ostrava. She will celebrate her 27th birthday on 22 August, the day after the Javelin Throw final. With silver medals in the World championships last year and in 2005, the party atmosphere could well be tempered by the result of her campaign to become a major championship winner for the first time.
Obergföll, who was fourth in the 2006 European Championships, will certainly not want to wait so long for her first major career victory as did her 36-year-old compatriot Steffi Nerius who achieved that goal when taking the continental gold that summer. Nerius (PB of 66.52) has thrown a best of 65.71m this year which took third place behind Špotáková and Obergföll in Ostrava in June. Nerius achieved the World bronze in Osaka, one of four minor medals at global level during her career. She was silver medallist in Athens 2004.
The World record holder, Osleidys Menéndez of Cuba is the other 70m performer in history. Her 71.70m global mark took her to the 2005 World Championship title in Helsinki – she had also won in 2001 - but she has struggled with injuries in the last three seasons and while in the mid-60m range is not the force of old. Most worrying for the Cuban is the fact that in her last competition which took place in Barcelona on 19 July she could muster no more than 56.12m for fourth behind Spain’s Mercedes Chilla (61.58).
In their 2005 European Junior champion, Mariya Abakumova, Russia has found a throwing gem. Now 22-years-old, Abakumova on 2 August in Irkutsk, at one of the Russian Olympic team’s competitions in preparation for Beijing, threw a national record of 67.25m. That performance improved by 5cm Tatyana Shikolenko’s Russian record which was set in 2000. In total this year Abakumova has improved her PB by just under three metres, and she also had a good 65.71m effort to win the national title in Kazan in July.
However, another talented 22-year-old, Germany’s Linda Stahl, who was 8th at the Osaka Worlds, and improved her PB to 66.06 on 30 July, will not play any part in events in Beijing as her throw in Leverkusen behind Obergföll’s 66.92m win was too late for her to book a place on the Olympic team. Instead Germany’s third string thrower in China will be Kathrina Molitor (61.74).
Britain’s Goldie Sayers with her 63.96m win in Kassel on 6 June took the scalps of the German top-4, but despite that victory and an overall base of four mid-63m competitions this summer, unless she can add a couple of metres to her national record of 65.05 from last year, she is likely to be left out of the hunt for medals come Beijing.
Currently, there are 31 women beyond the 60m mark this season, and of these athletes beyond 63m in 2008 there is also African record holder Justine Robbeson of South Africa (63.49), Martina Ratej of Slovenia (63.44), Belarussia’s Natallia Shymchuk (63.24), who won the European Cup this summer, and the Ukrainian pair Tetyana Lyakhovych (63.23) and Vira Rebryk (63.01).
This being Beijing look out also for Li Zhang. The 19-year-old was 2005 World Youth champion, and with a 62.09m PB to win the test event in the Olympic stadium on 25 May is the best of a trio of Chinese on show.
Chris Turner for the IAAF
