19yearold John Robert Oosthuizen of South Africa had signalled his gold medal ambitions when becoming the first automatic qualifier to advance to tonight’s final, his opening effort three days ago an excellent 78.42m.
A finalist at this winter’s Commonwealth Games, Oosthuizen did it again tonight as he opened with 78.52m, a distance which, as it turned, would have been enough for gold.
But the affable South African had more fireworks in store for the Chinese crowd and threw a new personal best, World Junior best performance of the year and Championships record of 83.07m in the second round.
A silver medallist three years ago at the IAAF World Youth Championships in Sherbrooke, Oosthuizen stood head and shoulders above the rest of the field in a final which saw him throw another two times over the 79-metre line.
A bronze medallist at last year’s European Junior Championships and the World Junior leader coming into these championships Ari Mannio of Finland was lucky to get silver with a last effort of 77.26m which overtook Ukraine’s Roman Avramenko’s 76.01m PB.
Victor Fatecha of Paraguay who won bronze in Marrakesh last year opened with a National Junior record of 75.64m which turned to be his best this evening. The South American finished fourth and was never in medal contention the top three men of this final being in medal position as early as round one was concluded.
Leslie Copeland who had set a National World Junior record of 69.62m for Fiji to advance to tonight’s final improved his record by almost four metres to 73.13m. His seventh place finish is his country's best result since Joe Naivalu's bronze medal 110m Hurdles run back in 1996.
The defending World Youth champion Noel Meyer, also of South Africa finished a disappointing tenth.
Oosthuizen’s is South Africa’s third gold medal in the World Junior Championships history of the men’s Javelin after Marius Corbett in 1994 and Hardus Pienaar in 2000.
