Walsh’s win puts him in an elite field
Kovacs runs foul of rules
OPINION: Tom Walsh is now Peter Burling’s chief rival for New Zealand sportsman of the year as New Zealand’s first male athletics world champion.
He should be early favourite for the Halberg Award because track and field is a much bigger global sport than America’s Cup yacht racing, which is a team sport anyway.
Walsh is New Zealand’s third gold medallist since the world athletics championships began in 1983 - long after Peter Snell’s career and a little past John Walker’s prime. Nick Willis continues to fly the flag on the track, but field events offer Kiwis the greatest hope of world glory.
We can never hope to beat the best in the fast-twitch fibre speed events - if we produced a Usain Bolt he’d likely be on the left wing for the All Blacks.
But New Zealand has a deep talent pool of big, burly athletes of Maori and Pacific Island heritage and rugged rugby front row types like Walsh, whose dad was once a Ranfurly Shield winner.
It shouldn’t surprise if Walsh’s London success inspired Kiwi kids to start biffing bits of molten metal in the backyard.
The Timaru titan now joins Adams and discus thrower Beatrice Faumuina as the only Kiwis to stand on top of a world championships podium.
His London gold medal must rank as one of New Zealand’s best at any athletics event.
He beat reigning world champion Joe Kovacs and shut Olympic gold medallist Ryan Crouser - who had dominated the world this season - out of the medals.
Walsh is still only 25, and will clearly get even better - throwers do not reach their prime till their late 20s to early 30s. Crouser is a year younger and is likely to be battling the Kiwi champion for many years to come.
Shot putters always strive for a consistent series - Walsh achieved the aim in London with six 21m-plus throws - but no-one has maintained excellence more than Valerie Adams, who won four consecutive world titles between 2007 and 2013.
The imperious Adams - a silver medallist at the Rio Olympics last year - dominated the world for a decade, although it has to be said the women’s shot put talent pool does not run as deep as the men’s does now.
It is easy to dismiss Faumuina to the footnotes because she flattered to deceive later in her career.
Unlike Adams and Walsh, the Aucklander never medalled at Olympic level, but 20 years ago she ‘‘A foul is a foul.’’
With those five words American shot putter Joe Kovacs accepted Kiwi Tom Walsh had won gold at the world championships in London yesterday.
The eventual silver medallist was earlier fuming after launching his sixth and final put 22.08m - 5cm further than Walsh’s best - only to turn around and see an official holding a red flag.
Kovacs made it clear he was filthy with the foul call by swinging his arm in fury in the official’s direction, before storming off, voicing his dissent, not joining Walsh and bronze medallist Stipe Zunic to celebrate, and protesting the decision.
Officials reviewed footage of his final attempt and upheld the decision, which was made after he was ruled to have touched the top
was New Zealand’s sporting darling - even doing a victory dance on TV with her mother and aunt.
Faumuina was the first New Zealander to win a world title in Athens in 1997. She saw off two Atlanta medallists a year later in Athens. Faumuina produced a personal best throw of 66.82m to beat silver medallist Ellina Zvereva (Belarus), who recorded of the toeboard with his left-foot.
Official shot put rules state a competitor is fouled if any article of clothing makes contact with the top of the toeboard or outside the throwing circle.
In Kovacs’ case, replays appeared to show his left-shoe skimming the top of the toeboard as he wound into his final attempt.
Walsh, now the outdoor and indoor world champion, told an NZME reporter it ‘‘felt like someone had died’’ when he found out a protest could rob him of his gold medal. Ultimately, a sliver of rubber was the difference between him winning gold by 37cm or coming up 5cm short.
After Kovacs had accepted he hadn’t won back-to-back world championship titles, he circled the infield smiling, with an American flag draped over his shoulders.
65.90m and 36-year-old Russian Natalya Sadova (65.14m).
To put that achievement in perspective, the two minor medallists both had doping bans at some stage of their chequered careers. Those were the odds Faumuina was competing against.
Her triumph laid the foundation for two other Kiwi champions - Adams and Walsh - to follow.