Farquhar claims top javelin ranking at Hiroshima
Wintec sport and excercise graduate and champion javelin thrower, Stuart Farquhar, hopes to be third time lucky as he tries for a top eight finish at the London Olympic.
Javelin athlete Stuart Farquhar is another throw closer to his dream of a final eight spot in June’s London Olympics.
The Wintec sports and exercise graduate’s previous best rankings are 20th at the 2008 Beijing games and 25th at the 2004 Athens games, but he is confident of making the final round this year based on recent form.
Farquhar produced a best throw of 86.31m, a personal best, at Hiroshima at the weekend, giving him the number one world ranking.
Career-long coach and Wintec tutor, Debbie Strange, is very happy with his progress, and highlighted Farquhar’s performance at last year’s World Championship meeting as one of his best yet.
“My highlight so far with Stuart would be when he came 11th at last year’s world champs,” Strange said.
Farquhar, 30, said his proudest sporting moment was coming second at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi, India.
Finishing his Bachelor of Sports and Exercise at Wintec in 2010, Farquhar continues to train at the Wintec facilities, and is thankful for the help he has received from tutors and students alike.
Winner of the New Zealand Championship title for the last 12 years, Farquhar hopes to increase his personal best distance from 85.35m to over 90m by the end of his career.
He first picked up the sport when he broke the record javelin distance at his high school athletics and he then started working with Strange at the age of 15.
Strange and Farquhar left for Hiroshima at the weekend, and head to Kawasaki, near Tokyo, for another tournament the following week.
The javelin qualifying round at the Olympics is on August 8, with the final on August 11.
