Atheltics Weekly

EVENT-BY-EVENT PREVIEW – WOMEN
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CARTER NO.1 IN KIWI ABSENCE
SHOT PUT
IT’S HARD to look beyond
Michelle Carter for gold in
this event. The ebullient
American won the Olympic
and world indoor titles last
year and demonstrated her
championship temperament by
doing it with last-round throws.
Event statistics
World record: 22.63m Natalya
Lisovskaya (RUS)
Champs record: 21.24m Natalya
Lisovskaya (RUS)/Valerie Adams (NZL)
Defending champion: Christina
Schwanitz (GER)
British interest: Rachel Wallader
AW prediction: 1 Marton (HUN);
2 Carter (USA); 3 Gong Lihiao (CHN)
History: Valerie Adams won four
gold medals between 2007 and
2013 and was also second in 2005.
The 31-year-old has shot put
talent flowing through her veins
too. Her father, Michael, won
Olympic silver in the event in
1984 and now she is out-doing
his achievements.
Her winning throw of 20.63m
in Rio was also a US record
as she beat four-time world
champion Valerie Adams of
New Zealand.
Adams is not competing in
London as she is due to give
birth to her first child in the
autumn. Christina Schwanitz
of Germany, the reigning world
and European champion, will
also be absent, having given
birth to twins last month.
This leaves Anita Marton, the
European indoor champion and
Olympic bronze medallist from
Hungary, as one of Carter’s
major rivals for gold.
Watch out, too, for Lijiao
Gong, the silver medallist at
London 2012 and Beijing 2015.
The Chinese athlete has shown
terrific form on the eve of the
championships with a worldleading
mark of 20.11m.
Carter’s US team-mates
Raven Saunders and Daniella
Bunch will also be a threat.
Michelle Carter: gold in Rio last year
They finished one-two at the
US trials, beating Carter into
third, and produced the top two
leading marks of 2017.
British champion Rachel
Wallader was a late addition
to the GB team – the Windsor,
Slough, Eton & Hounslow
athlete was fourth in the 2014
Commonwealth Games. JH
CUBAN DUO MAY THREATEN PERKOVIC
DISCUS
SANDRA PERKOVIC is one
of the hottest favourites at the
championships. The Croatian
holds seven of the top ten
marks in the world this year
and her best of 71.41m – set in
Switzerland last month – was
the best throw in the world
since 1992.
The 27-year-old has Olympic
golds from Rio and London,
four European titles and a world
title from Moscow in 2013.
She was beaten to the last
world title, though, by Denia
Caballero – and the Cuban is
likely to be one of her toughest
challengers again in London.
Despite her great recent
form, Perkovic has not been
invincible this year either. She
was beaten by another Cuban,
Yaime Perez, in Stockholm in
Sandra Perkovic: world No.1
faces rivalry from Cuba
June and again at a competition
in France last month.
The 26-year-old Perez won
the world junior title in 2010 and
is steadily improving, finishing
fourth at the 2015 World
Championships and having the
second best throw in the world
this year, albeit more than two
metres shorter than Perkovic’s
best.
Perkovic and the Cubans
aside, the US trio of Gia Lewis-
Smallwood, Valarie Allman and
Whitney Ashley will be in the
mix, plus Germany’s Nadine
Müller, Anna Rüh and Julia
Harting, the wife of multiple
world champion Robert.
Dani Stevens (nee Samuels),
the 2009 world champion,
throws for Australia and is
Event statistics
World record: 76.80m Gabriela
Reinsch (GDR)
Champs record: 72.30m Martina
Hellmann (GER)
Defending champion: Denia
Caballero (CUB)
British interest: Jade Lally
AW prediction: 1 Perkovic (CRO);
2 Perez (CUB); 3 Caballero (CUB)
History: German Franka Dietzsch
is the only three-time champion,
though Cuban Yarelis Barrios won
four successive medals between
2007 and 2013.
ranked No.3 in the world in
2017, but British fans will be
interested to learn she has links
here and has completed for
Wigan Harriers in the past.
Most home support though
will go to Jade Lally, who holds
the English record although
she’s not yet hit her superb
2016 form this year. JH
A T H L E T I C S W E E K L Y 4 9