Trinidad and Tobago’s two-time Olympic medallist Keshorn Walcott will be hoping to put an end to a run of five major events without a podium finish when he lines up in the ten-man field for the men’s javelin final at the 14th leg of the Wanda Diamond League Thursday (August 27) at Weltklasse Zürich.
In addition to the 33-year-old Walcott, a former Olympic gold and bronze medal winner, the field in Zurich features Sri Lanka’s Rumesh Tharanga Pathirage, 23, who won his third Diamond League event of the season last week when he narrowly edged India’s Neeraj Chopra.
This was after both Pathirage and Chopra surpassed the 88-metre mark; however, world leader Pathirage claimed victory with a third-round throw of 88.14m to beat Chopra’s season-best of 88.05m from the second round.
Chopra is not entered, but Grenada’s Anderson Peters, a two-time world champion who finished third with a best throw of 86.69m, is among the field along with USA’s Curtis Thompson and Marc-Anthony Minichello; Kenya’s former world champion and Olympic silver medal winner Jules Yego; Poland’s Dawid Wegner; Germany’s Thomas Rohler; Latvian Patriks Gailums; and Switzerland’s Simon Wieland.
The last podium finish for Walcott was a third place in Rabat, Morocco, back on May 31 with a best effort of 82.52m.
Since then, Walcott was fourth in Rome, Italy, on June 4 with a best of 83.45m; seventh in Doha, Qatar, on June 19 with a distance of 81.47 metres; and fourth at last week’s event at Stade Olympique de la Pontaise in Lausanne, Switzerland, courtesy of his effort of 83.71m, a season best.
In between, Walcott also missed out on medals at both the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland, and the Central American and Caribbean (CAC) Games in the Dominican Republic.
Walcott, a former world champion, failed to defend his CAC Games javelin title, surprisingly missing out on the podium with a fourth-place finish in the nine-man final with sixth and fourth-place finishes, respectively.
