Peters inspired by Bolt’s Beijing brilliance
Reigning world javelin champion Anderson Peters has revealed how watching the Beijing Olympics inspired him to take up athletics.
However, the 22-year-old admitted that javelin wasn’t his first choice.
Hailing from the Caribbean island of Grenada, Peters dreamed of becoming a sprinter after watching Jamaican legend Usain Bolt storm to 100m gold in a worldrecord time and also win the 200m title at the 2008 Beijing Games.
“When I started track and field, Usain Bolt just broke the world record. So like, I wanted to be the next Usain Bolt,” he said.
Frequent injuries dashed his dream. Heeding the advice of his coach, Peters turned to field events and became a javelin thrower at the age of 14, inspired by Trinidad and Tobago’s Olympic champion Keshorn Walcott.
“I started as a javelin thrower in 2012. I started training right after the (London) Olympics because I saw Keshorn Walcott become the Olympic champion. (I thought) if he could do it, then I could do it too because his country is about 30 minutes of flying from my country,” he said.
The sport took him to the international stage in 2013, when the World Under-18 Championships were held in Donetsk, Ukraine.
“At that point in time I didn’t know what the competition around the world really was,” said Peters.
‘A guy won with 78 meters — to me, that was crazy. I’ve never seen the javelin thrown 78 meters until that moment, in person. That was a great moment for me.”
Failing to qualify for Rio 2016 with a best throw of 79.95m, Peters improved to 84m in 2017, which was enough to earn him a ticket to his first-ever world championships, in London. However, he was far from satisfied with his result in the English capital.
“I underperformed so bad. I did 78m,” said Peters, who blamed his poor showing on being “star-struck”.
“It was crazy being able to be on the field, looking at the guys in person who I’ve been looking at on YouTube for so long,” he said. “The stadium was to full capacity at every session, morning and evening, 60,000 people. I have never seen so many people in one place in my life.”
However, Peters was no longer that nervous kid when he won gold at the 2019 Doha worlds with a throw of 86.89m. Now, the Grenadian is hoping to take an Olympic medal back to the Caribbean when the delayed Tokyo Games take place next summer.