Walcott: “I wish to throw over 90 meters”

19-yrs old Keshorn Walcott who became the youngest ever winner of the Olympic javelin title expressed his desire to throw over 90 meters in couple of years.

“I must work on my technique a lot. In next couple of years I get stronger and hopefully manage to throw over 90 meters,” Walcott said. Walcott, also the reigning junior world champion, threw 84.58 to his new personal best. His previous was 82.83 meters. Interesting is that his winning result in London is just 11cm shy of the world junior record held by Latvia´s Zigismunds Sirmais (84.69).

Trinidad and Tobago is a good athletics country but usually they don´t succeed at field events. “I´m not a good sprinter so I had to pick another event,” explained Walcott. “I tried triple jump but my results were not as good as in javelin so that is why I chose javelin.”

Trinidad and Tobago’s first Olympic gold in a field event halted Europe’s dominance of javelin at the games. American Cyrus Young is the only other person from outside Europe to win the event, and he accomplished the feat in 1952.

“It hasn’t caught up with me yet. I can’t really believe what I’ve done,” the 19-year-old Walcott said. “Making the final was great for me. Then coming to the end of the competition, I was realizing I’m still in front.”

Walcott was a bowler in cricket when he was a kid, and then he found out “the action is kind of similar to javelin.”

It’s a new approach to the discipline which has its traditional heartland in Finland. Antti Ruuskanen, who took third behind Oleksandr Pyantnytsya of Ukraine, was asked what it feels like to lose to someone from Trinidad and Tobago in the javelin.

“It never feels so good. But it’s good for javelin,” the Finn said.

Now Walcott is hoping his victory drums up interest in the sport in his cricket-loving nation.

“It wasn’t the most popular event in Trinidad and Tobago. Hopefully now it will be known more,” Walcott said.