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The girl with the golden arm

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Tom Fordyce | 10:30 UK time, Wednesday, 29 July 2009

There's a pernicious and enduring fallacy about girls and throwing - namely, that they can't do it.

As sporting falsehoods go, it's right up there alongside "Australia always win at Lord's" and - and we all know what and Dick Fosbury had to say on those topics.

If it's been a while since you last threw a javelin, I can assure you from harsh recent experience that it's significantly harder than it looks. An event that appears to be a simple matter of running, turning sideways and lobbing as hard as you can turns out to be more technically complicated than the pole vault and rougher on the upper body than shot put and discus combined.

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Watching throw the javelin, even off a single step, is enough to silence the most one-eyed biological determinist.

Goldie's expert tuition was desperately needed. With the days racing by until the one-hour decathlon, it's no longer just a case of trying things out. There's been at least one lesson in each of the 10 disciplines (curses on the hamstring injury that prevented more) but we're now at the point where genuine, measurable improvements are required.

Unfortunately, solo work on the running/turning/lobbing has yielded only the sort of distances or might expect.

More worryingly still, the javelin keeps landing upside down. Forget the aeronautical aesthetics; unless it starts to land nose first, it won't even count as a legal mark. And no score in the jav = one devastated decathlon.

Like a doctor diagnosing an illness, Goldie examines the symptoms and works out what's causing them. There's issues with my claw grip, insufficient shoulder mobility and something very strange indeed going on with the final hand movement.

For some reason I'm trying to rip it like a . I'm also aiming the point of the javelin at the sort of angle favoured by Apollo 11 at launch.

When Goldie throws, it's a smooth, effortless groove that pings the javelin in a perfect parabola miles into the infield. When I try the same, the spear turns sideways or stalls and dies.

Shoulders are stretched, fingers replaced around the grip. Sights are set on an unwitting hammer thrower in the cage down the other end of the field. The chap's not in danger - not unless he sprints 80 metres, picks up one of my prone javelins and impales himself deliberately - but it helps keep the spear travelling in a straight line.

"All you want to see when you throw," advises Goldie, "is a little black dot disappearing into the sky." Mine's more of a diagonal line, but we're starting to make progress.

In theory, your body is supposed to act like a bow - supple, springy - and your arm like the arrow. In practice, getting into the right position to throw involves such unfamiliar contortions to wrist, elbow and shoulder that a novice feels about as bendy as a high hurdle.

Then there's the run-up. I'd hoped that the addition of a thick, manly, supporting belt a la might sort things out. Instead Goldie has me prancing down the runway like a startled fawn. I couldn't look more camp if I was wearing a see-through gauze blouson and a studded leather cap.

Right foot crosses in front of left, throwing arm out behind, front arm out in front with wrist cocked. I'm moving like a malcoordinated chorus girl who's had too much to drink. A terrible thought enters my head: what if this isn't Goldie's fault at all? What if this is actually just the way I run?

Compensation of sorts is found with a primeval bellow as the javelin is released. The thinking is simple: if it worked for , it's worth giving a go. I don't have the man's whipcrack arm, extraordinary explosive strength or elasticated lats - but... ah, enough of this sentence. I'm getting downhearted just writing it.

Other lessons are learned between breathers. I find out that Goldie honed her technique throwing spears over fields of million-pound thoroughbred racehorses by her parents' house near Newmarket, something which might give and retrospective sleepless nights, and also hear a story about Dean Macey and a golf buggy that comes as no surprise whatsoever.

Then there's the matter of the stress fracture that's wrecked a large part of her season. I've spent the last five blogs moaning about my hamstring, but I'm only doing this decathlon for fun - it's not my living, which is probably for the best. For Goldie, it's altogether more serious.

It cost her six weeks of training and competition, and almost her seventh British title and a shot at the next month. Even now she's only just ready to throw off her full approach. For someone who only missed out on a medal at last summer's Olympics by 38 centimetres, every session lost to injury must hurt.

Still, there are compensations. Which of us hapless amateurs, for example, will ever have something like penned in their honour?

An hour and a half in, heartening progress has been made. In any case, Goldie has proper training to do, and I need to let all the advice sink in rather than just attempting run-ups of increasingly ridiculous length. There's a good reason why doesn't come off 60 paces and the back straight.

What's that? How far did I throw? Let's just say that it was more metres than .

But not by much.

Comments

  • Comment number 1.

    Great work, Tom, although you'll be certifiable by the time you finish.

    Does the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ budget extend to a trip to the Masai for some spear chucking practice?

    Just caught up on the shot putt blog - disappointed that no mention of the great Geoff Capes? Following that theme, where are Fatima and Tessa Sanderson these days?

  • Comment number 2.

    Another Great Blog,

    You really do bring it home just how difficult these individual events are!

    I cannot wait to hear the final result, one question where are you actually doing this event? can i come and watch? i feel through this blig that you have some real support and it would be great to come and cheer you on!

  • Comment number 3.

    I bet you had a great time with Goldie. She came up to Scotland and did a session for the Development squad, she was excellent & really nice to chat to. She had to be dragged away so she wouldn't miss her flight home. Good she see she is recovering from her serious injury.

    Glad you are highlighting how tough these events are, people like Goldie make it look so easy on TV.

    Did you get over 35m ?

  • Comment number 4.

    You have my sympathy Tom.

    At school I broke the 6th Form Shot Putt record which had stood for 13 years. My longest shot putt was longer than my longest legal javelin throw!

  • Comment number 5.

    Ha, nice blog. How's your elbow? At least you seem to have managed to avoid whipping yourself in the back with the tail of the javelin. Ah, I remember the weals as if it was yesterday.



  • Comment number 6.

    danwilko51 - I hold my hand up re the omission of The Capes Crusader. Respect to the former World's Strongest Man and now Britain's leading budgerigar breeder. Re Fatima and Tessa, try this and this:

    SaltersRoad - it'll be at Gateshead on 30 August, the day before the British Grand Prix. I'm only hoping I don't wreck the place before the proper athletes get in there.

    euanmac - agreed. And not quite - but I'll get there, oh yes I will...

    rambon, Chris10563 - is there an event with a greater disparity between how easy it looks and how hard it is to do? Ski-jumping?

  • Comment number 7.

    Great blog - but have you never heard of Phil the power Taylor who makes Eric Bristow look like an amateur. Do you not know of another darts player especially a guy who was just won the World masters for the 10th time and only has 13 World Championships. Come on Tom express yourself!!

  • Comment number 8.

    Tom - this was a great read. Had me alternately guffawing out loud and raising my eyebrows in sympathetic awe. Ultimately it's good just to read that you're cracking on and making progress on everything. I'm vicariously living this with you now mate, I'm hooked.

    Visions of you getting up at 4am, sticking on a hoodie and practising various events at dawn to the Rocky theme and Gonna Fly Now - you can do it mate, make us proud!

    PS - are you covering the third Test?

  • Comment number 9.

    Hey Tom,

    Great blog, as usual. The hammy seemed to be holding up well with the cross-step run-up, were you feeling it or was it ok?

    Throwing the javelin always depressed me, along with every other sport where brute strength was surpassed by superior technique!

    Goldie doesn't seem that big and muscular on the video, is that true in the flesh? I imagined her being a lot more broad shouldered and butch. Maybe there's hope for you yet....

    Good luck mate, wish I could be there to cheer you on - will be there in spirit from Asia.

  • Comment number 10.

    So about ten metrs then? What's the target to keep you on track for the 4k?

  • Comment number 11.

    Hi Tom,
    Glad to see you've regained your sense of humour. You're considerably more upbeat than before. I was also in attendance at the Scottish developement day mentioned by euanmac.

    Nice, absolutely, Goldie is very nice indeed.
    What nobody has mentioned is that she's also very fit, and I don't mean just physically fit.
    She's absolutely gorgeous and very feminine and not at all how you would imagine one of the top throwers in the world to look. A far cry from some of the 2 Ton munters we see masquerading as "athletes."

  • Comment number 12.

    Good stuff. I was a weedy 7 stone weakling at school but gained A or B standards in all events except two: high jump and javelin. Like rambon above, I could putt the shot further.

    Nice to see some old-fashioned sexism from Harpy, who I suspect is another Cumbrian. That Tina Lillak was a bit of all right an' all, like eh?...which makes me wonder -- how come the Russian lasses no longer look like Stalin-Ferguson tractors?

  • Comment number 13.

    Been reading these for a while. Good luck Tom, belonging to an athletics club myself, I know fellow nutters/athletes who partake in multi-eventing and, as myself am just a chunky thrower, have nothing but respect for them.

    When is it? I hate javelin as well, always seem to hurt myself...

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