Olympic Javelin Champion, Keshorn Walcott on Thursday made a statement of intent by shattering his country’s National Record (NR) and also setting a new Personal Best (PB) to win at the Lausanne Diamond League meet with a throw of 90.16m. This year, only the astonishing 91.39m from Kenya’s Julius Yego in Birmingham is better than Walcott’s throw.
Since the London 2012 Olympics, where Walcott surprisingly won GOLD as a 19-year-old, the Trinidadian has had to play second fiddle to other established Javelin throwers. Although his 2013 season was blighted with injuries, he came back a year later to win Silver at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.
However, his win in Lausanne has once again brought the spotlight back to him, emerging from the shadows of 2015 Diamond Race leaders, Vítězslav Veselý and Yego, who have been dominating the series this year. After making that throw on Thursday, Walcott was left so stunned that he paused for some moments closer to the stands as he clutched his chin in disbelief.
Interestingly, this is not the first time Walcott will be breaking the Trinidad & Tobago national record. Last year, he twice broke the NR in July and August, landing 85.28m in the Commonwealth Games Javelin qualifying event before following it up with an 85.77m improvement at the Diamond League in Zurich. This year, he matched his own NR in Birmingham and then set a new one in Rome with 86.43m.
Walcott is now ranked 14th in the all-time Javelin list, and with his recent performances, it could be a matter of time before he ends up in the world’s top 10.
Only two people have gone past the 90m mark this year, Yego and Walcott. Going by what has been seen so far in the Diamond League meets, the Javelin event promises to be a tasty proposition at the World Championships in Beijing.
