Olympic heroes No 14: Jan Železný

Published on 04/07/2012 00:00

IT’S little wonder that the Czech is widely considered to be the greatest javelin thrower of all time. Sixteen years after setting it, he still holds the world record of 98.48m and, while there have been many cases of a sport’s dominant force flopping in the big events, Zelezny certainly wasn’t one of them.

After laying down a marker by picking up a silver medal in Seoul in 1988, he came out on top in some great battles with the likes of Steve Backley, Sergey Makarov, Boris Henry, Seppo Räty, Raymond Hecht and Aki Parviainen to claim the gold in three Olympic Games – 1992, 1996 and 2000.

He achieved the same feat in the World Championships – in 1993, 1995 and 2001 – and the only thing missing from his CV was gold in the European Championships (having to settle for bronze in that in both 1994 and 2006).

He was voted the IAAF World Athlete of the Year in 2000 and twice picked up the European equivalent – in 1996 and 2000.