Record-smashing throw for Stevens
IN racing parlance Dani Stevens was the Winx of the Commonwealth Games.
Like the wonder mare, it wasn’t a matter of if she won but by how much. And Stevens did it in Winx-like style, smashing the Games record to win by almost 8m.
The defending champion led from the start but it was with her fourth throw that she knocked the field out, launching the discus 68.26m.
That comfortably surpassed the previous mark held by New Zealand’s Beatrice Faumuina of 65.92m set in Kuala Lumpur in 1998.
Stevens is now a local on the Gold Coast having moved here three years ago with her husband Joe.
“She’ll be over the moon,” Joe said. “You can’t beat that. The only thing missing is the Olympics (medal) so onwards and upwards to Tokyo in 2020.”
Stevens, 29, has enjoyed a career resurrection in recent years after losing her way following her shock world title victory in 2009 in Berlin.
She finished fourth in the
Rio Olympics and then grabbed the silver medal at last year’s world championships in London with a personal best and new Commonwealth and Australian record of 69.64m. The first medal of
her senior career came back at the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games where she won bronze.
Stevens missed the 2010 Games in Delhi because of safety concerns but then bounced back to win the Commonwealth title in Glasgow in 2014.
She is now at the peak of her athletic career and has her sights set on a distance only a select few in women’s discus have achieved – 70m. Since 1993, only four women have done it.
In more recent times, Cuba’s Denia Cabellero threw 70.65m in 2015 and Croatia’s Sandra Perkovic recorded 71.41m last year. The world record of 76.8m is considered one of the most untouchable records. It was set by East Germany’s Garbriele Reinsch in 1988.