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Walcott wins in Beijing

Olympic champion Keshorn Walcott produced the third best throw of his career to strike gold in the men’s javelin at the IAAF World Challenge meet, in Beijing, China, yesterday.

The Trinidad and Tobago field athlete hurled the spear 83.94 metres--his best effort since throwing 84.39m to win at the Twilight Games, here in Trinidad, on May 3, last year. Walcott’s personal best, 84.58m, earned him gold at the Olympic Games in London, England, on August 11, 2012.

An ankle injury put a damper on Walcott’s 2013 campaign, and he finished 18th at the World Championships in Moscow, Russia, with a 78.78m throw. But with the injury behind him, the 2012 world junior champion is approaching his best form again, and will be among the favourites for gold at the July 23-August 3 Commonwealth Games, in Glasgow, Scotland.

Walcott opened his 2014 campaign with International Twilight .Games victory at the Hasely Crawford Stadium, landing the spear 79.33m. He was back in action on Sunday, throwing 81.09m to finish seventh at the Shanghai Diamond League meeting, in China.

Walcott followed up with yesterday’s triumph in Beijing, his big 83.94m effort earning the 21-year-old thrower sixth spot on the 2014 world performance list.

Ihab Abdelrahman is the world leader with a huge 89.21m effort. The Egyptian, however, was disappointing in Beijing, throwing 74.03m to finish 10th.

Russian Valeriy Iordan (82.05m), Czech Republic’s Petr Frydrych (80.30m) and Kenyan Julius Yego (78.78m) were second, third and fourth, respectively, in yesterday’s IAAF World Challenge meet.

T&T’s Mikel Thomas, meanwhile, clocked 15.19 seconds to finish seventh in the men’s 110m hurdles. China’s Wenjun Xie topped the field in 13.31.

And at the Loughborough International meet, in England, on Sunday, 19-year-old T&T runner Nicholas Landeau returned a time of one minute, 50.38 seconds – a new personal best – to bag bronze in a men’s 800m event.

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