Athletics: Vili edging closer to 21m mark

Olympic and world shot put champion Valerie Vili is on target to go beyond her statistical goal for this year.

The New Zealander wiped the floor with her rivals in Brazil today when she established a personal best mark of 20.69m at the Sudamericano grand prix meeting.

It bettered her previous top effort of 20.56m, set last year when she won the gold medal at the Olympic Games in Beijing, and thrilled her coach Kirsten Hellier.

She crushed her opponents, too, finishing 1.21m ahead of second-placed Belarussian Natallia Mikhnevich, the 2008 Olympic silver medallist, while Cuba's Misleydis Gonzalez was third on 18.93m.

An excited Vili woke her coach at home in Auckland at 2.20am this morning as she phoned in the news.

"She was just buzzing. Val is a real creature of ... performance really spurs her on. Knowing that she is only one feet away from 21m means she will be absolutely pumped," Hellier said.

Before Vili hung up Hellier mischievously took the opportunity to point out that Vili had fallen 1cm short of the distance the coach predicted she would achieve in Brazil.

"I should have chastised her really; it's not good enough," Hellier laughed.

More seriously, Hellier said Vili's fifth throw in excess of 20m this year left her poised to better 21m by Christmas.

"Our objective for this year was to consistently throw over 20m and within the mid-20 mark, working towards the 21m mark.

"She has done that really successfully so far and cemented what she did in our domestic season."

Vili is a hugely self-motivated athlete, using performance and statistical goals to aid her continuing improvement.

The 21m mark remained on the horizon but Hellier said the world athletics championships in Germany in August presented the biggest and best stage possible on which to tick off that ambition.

"It would be great to do it in the big Berlin stadium. It is a target and it is something we want to achieve.

"There are other athletes capable of throwing that distance and if you want to win a world title you need to be prepared to throw that sort of distance as well as have the mindset that you can achieve it."

Hellier said she and Vili had spoken often about the need to attain consistency in performance.

"With consistency you establish a good quality plateau and from that you tend to have these little jumps up. That's always been the objective.

"It is also something that is difficult to do when you get to Val's level. She's obviously one of the top throwers in the world and those jumps don't happen all the time.

"They certainly don't happen in massive increments but, having said that, we are very confident there is more to come. Watch this space."

While 21m seems realistic the longstanding world best in the discipline looks out of reach for today's athletes.

The world record of 22.63m was set by Natalya Lisovkaya in 1987. Many consider the mark tainted by the suspicion the Russian was fuelled by illegal means, but that is of little importance to Hellier and Vili.

"Sometimes it can just be technical changes or developments, but you just don't know what you're dealing with or what was going on back in those days," Hellier said.

"The reality is that we can only work on the bench marks being set by today's standards. Val is one of the ones setting those bench marks.

"Twenty-one metres is still obtainable by a couple of athletes," said Hellier, using the example of Nadzeya Ostapchuk, of Belarus, who threw over 21.09m in 2005 and reached 20.98m just before last year's Olympics.

"Our focus is to get Val to that level and make sure when she comes out to target competitions and performances that she is capable of reaching that level every time."

- NZPA