Season’s best from Walsh
Tom Walsh is inching closer to the level he will need to hit to contend for a gold medal at the world athletics championships in London starting on Saturday (NZT).
The Olympic bronze medallist and world indoors and Diamond league champion from New Zealand had his final pre-worlds hitout at the England championships in Bedford, and produced a tidy season’s best – and third furthest all-time – of 22.06 metres to comfortably win the competition.
That was his second 22m-plus winning throw on the bounce after he posted 22.04m to claim a special event at his training base of Athens, Georgia, before he left to join the New Zealand team at their training camp in Cardiff.
The 25-year-old Timaru athlete was typically robust on the back of his winning toss in Bedford, declaring on Twitter: ‘‘SB (season’s best) today 22.06m for the win at English champs. Can’t wait to set London alight next week.’’
Walsh will likely have to improve significantly on his season’s best if he’s to claim gold, with American Olympic champion Ryan Crouser in red-hot form leading into the championships.
Crouser, who has won his last 10 events, is unbeaten in 2017 and has been blasting past the 22-metre mark with extraordinary consistency. He has beaten Walsh on all four occasions they’ve met this year and has a season’s best of 22.65m that is intimidating, to say the least.
In fact Crouser and fellow American Joe Kovacs, the Olympic silver medallist, have the nine best throws of 2017 between them – a half metre clear of Walsh who is the best of the rest.
Not that Walsh is the type to concede defeat before the competition has even begun.
‘‘If you go into a competition thinking I’m only here for second place, then you’ve lost already,’’ Walsh said prior to his hitout at the Engllish championships. ‘‘He (Crouser) knows that I’m coming for him, put it that way.
‘‘I’m going to win it, no doubt abt that. I’m throwing better than what I ever have before at this time of year and in this type of shape. When I do line things up at the world champs a few people may be changing their tune about me – that’s all I’ll say about that.’’
Walsh and fellow Kiwi Jacko Gill will compete in the qualifying round of the shot put in London on Saturday night (9pm NZT), with the final on Monday (7.35am NZT).
Meanwhile, it was a Kiwi double in the pole vault at the English championships with Auckland’s Nick Southgate claiming the men’s event with a best leap of 5.35m and young age-group star Olivia Mctaggart winning the women’s with 4.15m.
Kiwi Ben Langton Burnell, who will also line up in the world championships, was third in the javelin with a throw of 73.29m.