Valerie Vili

Standing 1.96m (6’5”) tall, it would seem obvious why Valerie Vili would have the tools necessary to become the best shot putter in the world. And yet sport wasn’t something that Vili embraced initially. Not eager to draw additional attention to herself given how she already towered above most of her peers, fourteen-year old Valerie Adams was coaxed into a school shot put competition, which she won in a regional record.

In 1998, Vili teamed up with current coach and former javelin thrower Kristen Hellier. The following year, Vili participated in her first international games, placing 10th at the World Youth Championships in Bydgozcz, Poland. In 2001, Vili improved dramatically on this initial result, as she won her first global gold medal at the IAAF World Youth Championships in Sherbrooke, Canada. The win had added personal signficance, as Vili’s mother had passed away the previous spring, an event which those who know her say served to make her more focused to achieve success.

And success followed. The next year, Vili continued her winning ways, capturing the shot put gold at the IAAF World Junior Championships in Kingston. Making her name into senior competitions, Vili also won the silver medal at the Commonwealth Games in Manchester, and, later that summer, finished in sixth position at the IAAF World Cup in Madrid.

While her fifth place finish at the 2003 IAAF World Championships put her on a short list of medal candidates for the Athens Olympics, illness would derail her chances. A bad case of appendicitis she suffered just before the Games cast doubt on her ability to compete. Nevertheless, she made the trip to Athens and finished eighth. Later that year, she married New Caledonian discus thrower Bertrand Vili.
The next year, Vili was able to bounce back from her Athens disappointment to take the bronze medal at the IAAF World Championships in Helsinki. In 2006, she picked up two more medals: first at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne and at the IAAF World Cup in Athens, both of them gold. Vili, known as a model of consistency in her throwing, continued her winning ways into 2007. At the IAAF World Championships in Osaka, Vili was in second place by just 9cm going into her final throw. Before entering the ring, she dedicated her final attempt to her father, who had recently passed away. Hurling all her might into her last effort, Vili smashed her own Area Record and won the world title. In doing so, she became one of only four women to win global titles at the youth, junior and senior levels. It’s a winning record that Vili hopes to keep up as she aims towards Beijing.