MOTHER OF ALL MEDALS
Dame Valerie Adams is heading to the Gold Coast in search of an unprecedented fourth consecutive Commonwealth Games gold medal. However, as Dwayne Grant reports, GC2018 will be like no other major competition the Kiwi has contested before.
DAME Valerie Adams is a two-time Olympic gold medallist, three-time Commonwealth Games winner and four-time world champion.
But you know what the shot putter hasn’t done? Claimed such a title as a mother. Bring on GC2018.
“It will definitely make the moment more special to win a medal with my daughter,” the Kiwi shot put legend said of hunting for gold on the Gold Coast only a few months after the birth of daughter Kimoana.
“I’ve been to four Olympics now. This will be my fifth Commonwealth Games. I know it will come to an end soon.
“I have to work as hard as I can, enjoy it as much as I can, keep smiling. Once it is over, it is done and dusted. Hopefully I can inspire young athletes from New Zealand to come through the ranks, work hard and do their best.”
For an event sometimes derided as lacking the global superstars of an Olympics, Adams’ presence at next month’s Commonwealth Games is a reminder that many of the world’s best athletes are headed our way.
Like Malaysian legends Nicol David (squash) and Lee Chong Wei (badminton), the 1.93m colossus is sporting royalty in her homeland and has dominated her craft like few others before her.
You want proof? She once went undefeated in major world competition for almost nine years – an amazing winning streak of 107 competitions.
Not bad considering she found the world of shot put an escape from the bullying she endured as a timid child.
“Athletics was somewhere I felt normal,” said Adams, who discovered the sport as a 14-year-old, not only breaking a school record that had stood for 20 years but doing so while competing barefoot.
“I got bullied at school because I was so tall. Kids called me every name under the sun.
“(With) athletics I felt normal. I was successful. I did very well. This was my playing field. I didn’t have to try to be a certain person. I was just me. That got me out of my shell eventually.
“I love the fact it is an individual sport because (while) I am a team player, it would really p--- me off if somebody in the team wasn’t working as hard as I was.
“Shot put was the right calling for me. If I didn’t do well, it was my fault. If I didn’t put in 100 per cent, it was my fault.”
ATHLETICS WAS SOMEWHERE FELT NORMAL. I GOT BULLIED AT SCHOOL BECAUSE I WAS SO TALL. KIDS CALLED ME EVERY NAME UNDER THE SUN VALERIE ADAMS
Adams will be aiming for an unprecedented fourth consecutive Commonwealth Games gold medal next month.
Indeed, the only time she hasn’t stood atop the podium was her debut Games in 2002 when the then 17-year-old claimed silver, falling just 8cm short of first place.
“I think Manchester set me up for the rest of the Games I would compete in,” Adams said. “I learned so much from that experience.
“The Village life, the opening ceremony, it can be quite overwhelming if you are young because you want to experience everything but it is quite tiring.
“In 2002 I was at the junior championships in Jamaica and then a week later I was at the Commonwealth Games in Manchester.
“It was an amazing experience for me because it gave me a taste of what international athletics was all about.”
Like so many champions, it has been Adams’ ability to reinvent herself that has seen her soar to legend status above that of mere mortals, never more so than after a horror 2010 that could have broken her.
“I finished with my long-term coach, I got divorced,” she recalled. “(But) it was probably the best thing to happen to me because it gave me the second wind going forward.”
Within six months of pairing with her new coach, Adams threw a personal best, won a world championship and set her on a course that will see her next stop on the Gold Coast.
Now it’s just a matter of seeing if that journey will climax with her cradling a gold medal in one hand and a baby in the other.