TWO-TIME TT Olympic medallist Keshorn Walcott concludes his 2021 campaign as the tenth best men’s javelin thrower in the world.
On Tuesday, World Athletics published its updated track and field athlete rankings which saw Walcott finish on 1267 points.
Topping the list was German national record holder and Tokyo Olympics fourth place (85.30 metres) Johannes Vetter (1430pts), followed by this year’s Olympic silver medallist Jakub Vadlejch (1361pts) of Czech Republic and 2013 European Junior Championships gold medallist German Julian Weber (1326pts) respectively.
Tokyo Olympics javelin winner Neeraj Chopra (India) was fourth (1315pts) and Moldovan Andrian Mardare (1314pts) completed the top five.
Walcott however, impressively remains among the globe’s top-ten throwers although he competed in just seven major events over a three-month duration this year.
After a 19-month absence owing to the pandemic, the Toco-born field athlete returned to competition in May and earned bronze (82.75m) at the Ostrava Games in the Czech Republic.
He followed up with four silver medal performances at the Wanda Diamond League (77.78m) in England, Paavo Nurmi Games (82.84m), Kuortane Games (89.12m) – both in Finland – and the Spitzen Leichtathletik (85.16m) in Switzerland.
Walcott’s final meet before the Tokyo Games saw him earn bronze with an 82.81m effort at the Muller British Grand Prix in Gateshead, England.
At the Summer Games, he was considered one of TT’s favoured medal contenders. However, Walcott was unable to progress out of the qualifying rounds as his best effort of 79.33m fell outside of the advancing five athletes from his group. His throw was ranked as seventh best.