And once again the question arises: who is going to beat Andreas Thorkildsen? Until 2009, Norway’s double Olympic champion had a weak spot in his CV – if you count successive World silver medals as weak. He fixed that imperfection in Berlin with a winning throw of 89.59m. The odds are that he will defend his World title just as he defended his Olympic title in Beijing.

 

Just in case any of his opponents were in any doubt about his standing, Thorkildsen launched the spear out to 90.61m in Byrkjelo on 14 August to better his own 2011 best of 88.43m. It was his best throw in almost two years.

 

The Norwegian thus goes into Daegu with four of the five best throws of the season to his credit.

 

As so often in recent seasons, one of the rivals intent on upsetting that predicted win is Finland’s Tero Pitkamaki, who beat the Norwegian to the World title in Osaka in 2007 and defeated him in the second Samsung Diamond League meeting of the season in Shanghai.

 

After a relatively slow start to the season, when he could only manage fifth place in the opening Samsung Diamond League event in Doha on 6 May, Thorkildsen got back into more convincing form in China, where he was narrowly beaten by his Finnish friend and rival. But in launching his fifth throw he aggravated a problem with a groin muscle and had to retire from the competition.

 

It looked worrying, as the Olympic champion slowed to a halt and made his way uneasily and slowly back to his seat. But after taking a few weeks to recover – and missing the Samsung Diamond League on his home soil at Oslo in the process - his subsequent performances demonstrated he was back in full fettle now.

 

By 30 June he was back in shape and earned the first of three successive Samsung Diamond League wins in Lausanne, which he followed up by winning in Birmingham and Stockholm.

 

So who can stop him in Korea?

 

Obviously Pitkamaki will like his chances, having done it once before in World Championship. But Thorkildsen will face serious opposition from several other young and upwardly mobile talents who have already made their mark in this year’s Samsung Diamond League competition.

 

While Thorkildsen has a commanding five points lead in the Diamond Race for his event, the man in second place, Matthias De Zordo, has thrown consistently well this season.

 

The 23-year-old German won at Oslo in Thorkildsen’s absence and finished second to him in the most recent Samsung Diamond League javelin competition in Stockholm on 29 July, throwing 84.37m as Thorkildsen produced an effort of 88.43m, then a 2011 world-leading effort.

 

The Norwegian will also be mindful of the talent of the Latvian who has intruded on his space at the top of the world lists with the fourth best effort of the year – Vadims Vasilevskis, who has thrown 88.22m.

 

Vasilevskis took silver behind Thorkildsens’s gold at the Athens Olympics of 2004, but has failed to win a global championship medal since.

 

The third furthest thrower this season is Russia’s 38-year-old Sergey Makarov, the 2003 World champion, who has managed 87.12m.

 

De Zordo has a best this season of 85.78m, with Pitkamaki’s winning effort of Shanghai, 85.33m, still standing as his furthest throw of 2011.

 

Two other relative youngsters have established themselves with some consistent performances this year – the 24-year-old South African, John Robert Oosthuizen, who was second in the opening Samsung Diamond League meeting in Doha with his season’s best of 84.38m, and 23-year-old Petr Frydrych of the Czech Republic, who has thrown 85.32m this year and is coached by the three-times Olympic champion Jan Zelezny.

 

source: IAAF