Valerie Vili - two shots, one aim

Nature has provided Valerie Vili with the foundation to propel her to the top of the athletics world but the secret is determination that few can match. Picture / Brett Phibbs

All superheroes have an alter ego. When they unhitch their capes and relax, they revel in their ordinariness, the pleasure of being just another person. When Valerie Vili steps out of the shot put circle, and sheds her competition face, she dons her glasses and jams her tall, muscular frame behind the wheel of a compact 1300cc hatchback.

The Commonwealth Games gold medallist, a 21-year-old with the potential to become our greatest athlete, transforms into a conventional young woman: she goes to work; at Christmas, she tried surfing; she's happy gardening, or slouching on the couch watching Shrek 2 or White Chicks. Like so many other young couples she and her husband dream of buying a house.

More than anything, she wants a decent pair of shoes. With feet that are men's size US 13, it's impossible for a girl to get a glam pair of heels. "When I go to functions, I find nice clothes, but then you look down and ... ugh. If someone can make me a women's dress shoe, I'll publicise them for the rest of my life."

But it is the superheroes' powers which set them apart from mere mortals. There are feats from Vili that astonish even international opponents. She is ranked number two in the world. She has bagged a world championship medal, only the second New Zealander to do so. And she has only begun - shot putters peak in their 30s. The Olympics of Beijing (2008) and London (2012), at least, lie ahead.

All superheroes need a sidekick, too. Vili's is Kirsten Hellier, 36, her coach, mentor, boss, and friend, a woman who, one week after meeting the 14-year-old Vili, told her husband: "She's going to be an Olympic champion."

On a cold June morning, Vili and Hellier are behind Mt Smart Stadium for throwing practice. "Welcome to our world," says Hellier, using a squeegee to mop the concrete shot-put circle. "Who said coaching is glamorous?"

There's an overgrown hedge to the right, a moss-covered stone wall to the left, and clumpy grass on squelching earth. Vili is throwing two extra-heavy shots - 6kg and 6.5kg instead of 4kg - which sink on impact.

This is the laborious, repetitive work required of a world-class athlete. When they arrived, Vili and Hellier were joking. "Ha. You look like a licorice allsort." Hellier laughs at Vili, who's wearing black tights, and a red T-shirt over a blue long-sleeved thermal vest. Around her waist is a black weight belt, her ears are adorned with gold hoop earrings, and she has a gold crucifix necklace. But now, when she's working hard, there are no smiles. As she enters the circle, Vili puts on what Hellier calls the "game face". Vili calls it her "don't [expletive] with me face". It's a mask of concentration and aggression.

She snuggles the shot against the right side of her neck and chin, positions the toes of her right foot against the edge of the circle and stretches her left leg behind her. For a moment she is perfectly still, balancing on her right foot.

Ka-boom. She launches with explosive force. The shot travels in a direct line across the circle and Vili pirouettes around it, positioning herself so her hips are facing forward and her right foot is underneath her centre of gravity.

At the release, her hand unfurls, propelling the shot for as long as possible, urging it away, away, away ...

Hellier observes every throw as if it's freeze-frame, searching for perfection.

She's like a golf coach watching for power, timing, flow and follow-through.

As I watch, I see the gracefulness, the precise, delicate movements, the controlled power.

She is trying to achieve a long, slow explosion. Her 20.20m personal best took 1.3sec, from the start to release, one of her slowest recorded throws.

Unquestionably, nature equipped Vili with the foundation to propel her to the top of the athletics world.

But the secret is mettle and determination forged out of tragedy and grief. She had to mature quickly and developed a formidable work ethic and tenacity. She has tasted the bitterness of disappointment and delicious triumph.

Anger and shame brewed by years of taunts and rejection are channelled into a belligerent stubbornness and a potent motivating force.

Vili was born tall, thanks to her English father, Sid (2.10m), and Tongan mother, Lilika (1.55m). Sid Adams, 75, has 17 children to five women, and says partners never stuck around because he was a "lousy bugger to live with".

Although Vili keeps in touch and he is extremely proud of her, Sid doesn't claim any credit. "It's all Valerie's doing," he says. Still, his genes help many offspring excel at sport - several have represented New Zealand in basketball.

Sid and Lilika split while Vili and her older sister Patricia were pre-schoolers. They moved to Mangere. For some time while they were growing up, another man lived with them. He and Lilika had a child, Ana, now 16.

Their stepfather played a big part in their lives, Patricia says. "He made Mum happy."

Patricia remembers Valerie as being shy, and picked on because of her height. "She was the gentle giant and I was the big bad wolf who had to look after her," Patricia says.

At school, Valerie's friend was Erica Farrelly. She was half Vili's height and had orange hair and freckles. "Here's this tall Tongan girl, all quiet, shy and gentle," says Patricia, "walking around with this short white girl who bossed her around and stood up for her."

Vili, still friends with Farrelly, chuckles. "Erica once got a black eye for me. This bully was going to punch me, so Erica stood in the way."

Sport was Valerie's salvation. When her standard-three class did softball throwing, Vili out-hurled everyone.

In the third form, Southern Cross campus PE teacher Tracy Lemon took Vili to the Counties Manukau athletics day.

"We were running late and when we got to the shot put, the officials said, 'Oh, seniors is this afternoon'," Lemon says. Vili, embarrassed, wanted to leave.

"I said, 'She is a junior and she is throwing'."

In her anger, Vili heaved the shot like a tennis ball. Wearing jandals, she broke a 20-year record.

A star had arrived on the New Zealand athletics scene. But plenty of kids have talent. Few make it. For this 14-year-old to go somewhere, someone special had to take her.

Looking back through Kirsten Hellier's life, it's as if it was all preparation for the moment she met Vili. She was born in Tokoroa (she and Vili share their birthday, October 6) and was 5 when her family moved to Samoa, where her father did construction work. They stayed for six years before moving back.

Hellier loved the javelin. Her coach was decathlete Max Stewart (he died in 2003) who taught her a variety of training methods, from technical sessions to weights and plyometrics.

Stewart also helped her with problems at home when she was a teenager. He instilled in Hellier a positive attitude - on the board above her desk are positive affirmations: happiness is not about success, but success is about happiness.

Stewart remained a big part of her life, even after she decided, in her early 20s, not to have a coach. It was also at that time that she met athlete Patrick Hellier.

Kirsten competed at the 1992 Olympics and the 1994 Commonwealth Games. Despite her top ranking, she botched the first four rounds and was out of the medals. She had to dig deep.

"If you turn up to a major competition doubting yourself, you might as well forget it," Hellier says. "I knew I was capable and I wasn't prepared to walk away from that competition without taking home what I knew I deserved." She mustered a last-round silver-medal throw.

After having her first child in 1996, Hellier's career wound down and she began coaching.

In 1998, Tracy Lemon had introduced Vili to another coach, Russ Hoggard. He rang Hellier.

"I've got this really tall girl and I don't know what to do with her," Hoggard told Hellier. "I reckon you might be able to."

Biographers know lives are not a monotonous chronology, but a series of crucial turning points. Vili and Hellier clearly remember the moment they met.

Hellier: "I was at Massey Park, Papakura, just finishing training ... a big group of 28. Val walked over to me and as she got closer I thought - I'm sorry, there's no polite way to put this - 'Holy shit'. She was 6ft 4, but quite reserved and you could tell she was very conscious of her height by the way she walked hunched over. I got about two words out of her."

Vili: "It was pretty scary coming from South Auckland and getting this white person to train you. I was shy about meeting someone new, shy because it was a big group. And I was thinking, 'How am I ever going to be able to do all that training?' "

Hellier's initial challenge was convincing Vili that her size, the root of her shame, was a glorious asset. It helped that in athletics Vili found people who admired, not mocked, her height and strength.

Asked if there was a moment when she realised she had broken through Vili's shield of self-protection and shyness, Hellier laughs. "Yeah. Eventually, she accepted rides home [rather than catch the train from Mangere to Papakura]. But that's not it. It was when she started singing along to my Shania Twain CDs in the car."

A 1.73m blonde and a 1.96m black-haired teenager driving up the Southern Motorway singing their hearts out: "Man. I feel like a woman."

Hellier and Vili were a unit. But Hellier's time in Samoa had taught her that another important connection was necessary - Vili's mother.

In Pacific Island culture, the head of the house rules. In Valerie's world, her mum was everything.

Kindhearted, authoritative, and a fine cook of taro and palasami (taro leaves in coconut milk), Lilika was keen to find out what Hellier had in mind.

"I understood how things were, the right way and the wrong way, and it was important to have Lilika's support," says Hellier.

Vili says her mum sacrificed much and encouraged her, insisting her daughter train. "Mum even let me train on Sundays which was a huge no-no. She was a Mormon and Sundays were strictly for sitting around doing nothing."

Lilika was terminally ill with cancer.

Patricia was no longer living at home, so it was up to Vili to care for her mum.

"She was there every day for mum," says Patricia, "and she had to miss heaps of school."

Lilika died in September 2000, soon after the opening of the Sydney Olympics. Vili vowed she would make it one day, for the sake of her mother's memory. She became a changed person. "Since Mum died she has gone hard and she's not easy to break any more," Patricia says. "Everything has changed, her confidence, her motivation."

Lilika's death had the effect of drawing coach and athlete closer. "The first person I called when Mum died was Kirsten," Vili says. "That's the kind of relationship we have." Vili moved in with the Helliers for a year. Gleaning advice from overseas biomechanists and coaches, Hellier and Vili developed together.

Vili continued her record-breaking way and gained crucial international experience, including wins at the 2001 world youth championship, the 2002 world junior championship, and silver, aged 17, at the Manchester Commonwealth Games.

The team's chef de mission, Dave Currie, marvels at Hellier and Vili's relationship. "Effectively, it's a parent coaching a child and there's not many relationships like that that work.

"There must be times when they don't agree, but they seem to have some resolve where they can deal with it. I've never seen any aggravation."

Hellier is staunchly protective of Vili, and Currie says: "Kirsten can be pretty forceful and if she thinks something is not being done right she's not afraid to say so."

He admires their intensity and how they reacted when things did not go to plan at the 2004 Olympics, an event which was supposed to be the fulfilment of a promise for Vili.

A week before she was to leave New Zealand she was rushed to hospital with appendicitis.

There were complications and the operation took three hours instead of one and almost ended her Olympic dream.

Vili fought to regain her fitness, but missed vital pre-Games competitions.

The pressure was immense. It was her first Olympics and the shot put was at Olympia, site of the original Greek games.

In the final, Vili missed the top eight by 3cm. The 19-year-old was distraught, particularly with a second-round foul. She walked out of the circle and was immediately asked by a TV reporter: "What went wrong with your second throw?"

Vili lashed out: "That's none of your business. What happens out there is my business."

It was an understandable reaction from an emotional young athlete. "I was disappointed and I was [expletive] off. I cried and cried. It was very upsetting and then I had to suck it all back in and take the positives."

To cap her first Olympic experience, on the flight back home Vili heard that the Russian gold medallist had failed a drugs test and been stripped of her medal. A cheat had robbed her of a place in the top eight and another three throws.

Once home, a washed-out Hellier took a six-week break, their longest period off.

Hellier needed time with her family, though her kids kept hounding her. "Mum, when are we going to training?" Mikaela, now 10, and Jarod, 6, would say.

Training without Hellier, Vili felt lost. She was hurt by the Olympics but never contemplated quitting.

Hellier had taught her to search for positives - it helped immensely her personal life was about to hit a major high. After returning from Greece, her partner of four years, New Caledonian discus thrower Bertrand Vili, proposed. "When I asked her to marry me, she cried," he says. The couple, who converse in French, married in front of 30 friends and family.

Former PE teacher Tracy Lemon, still a close friend, says Bertrand makes Valerie relaxed.

"They come around and do the cooking sometimes," says Lemon. "Well, Val and I gossip in the lounge and Bertrand cooks ... "

"When she is in that happy place, amazing things happen."

Vili's happiness was a key to her success in the last 12 months. In preparation for August's World Championships in Helsinki, Vili and Hellier stayed in a self-contained apartment in London. "It was a home away from home," says Hellier. "Val is a homebody. She loves to potter around, so it was perfect." The strategy worked with Vili surprising her opponents by claiming bronze.

The Melbourne Commonwealth Games in March saw Vili at her laid-back best. Smiling and calm, she obliterated the opposition - and the Games record - before the biggest television audience she has ever had. Tears rolled down her cheeks on the victory dais, although when footage played on the big screen at a team function after the Games, Vili quipped: "It's only sweat."

Internationally renowned throwing coach John Trower, a high-performance manager for Britain's athletic team, who saw Vili in Melbourne and Helsinki, is impressed by her technique and the coach-athlete combination.

Does Trower think Vili can win Olympic gold? "The crucial thing is that the women's shot has had its history of doping, but Val just has to get stuck in and do the work. "There will be girls who will be cheating like hell. If [anti-doping agency] WADA get their act together like they have been, Val's got a great chance."

There's no doubt Vili is getting stuck in as she prepares to leave next month for competitions before September's World Cup in Athens.

Through winter she's been working out at the Macleans College gym with a group that includes Patrick Hellier and young javelin-thrower Steve Buckley. The Rock blasts on the radio and the banter gushes.

On the afternoon I'm there, Buckley's teasing Vili that he'll email me a photo of her doing a Dame Edna Everage impersonation. Disappointingly, it never arrives.

In a serious moment, Patrick Hellier says he thinks it's the support surrounding Vili that makes all the difference. He is proud of his wife's role.

"Val could easily have gone off the rails. But a number of people stepped up, and Kirsten's a major part of it," he says.

If they hadn't found each other, would Vili and Hellier be where they are today? Probably not. There's something special in the combination - a superhero and her sidekick taking on the world.

Path to gold

Born: October 6, 1984, Rotorua.

Club: Pakuranga.

Tattoo: Silver Fern on left ankle.

Personal best: 20.20m, Christchurch, 2006.

International medals: World Youth Championship, 2001, gold; World Junior Championship, 2002, gold; Commonwealth Games, 2002, silver; World Championships, 2005, bronze; Commonwealth Games, 2006, gold.

Job: Assistant sports co-ordinator, Macleans College, Bucklands Beach (her boss is Kirsten Hellier).

Funding: Sponsorship from adidas; Sparc performance enhancement grant for top athletes to cover the cost of training, equipment and day-to-day living.

Val on ...

Drugs: I do it clean and I'm happy to promote drug-free sport, especially throwing. What can you do? Sit there and sulk. I know I'm clean and I'm doing it on potatoes, meat and veges.

Short-term goals: I want to compete well at this year's World Cup, to throw over 20m. Next year at the world champs I want a medal and I don't want one the same colour as last year [bronze].

Relaxing with husband Bertrand: We go out, chill out. I'm a domestic lady. When I have free time, most of the time I spend it at home, weeding the garden, visiting mum [at her grave].

Kirsten on…

What Val has that others don't: She is very determined and a huge amount of that comes from within. Also, she takes a lot of motivation - I'm not sure that's the word for it - from honouring her mum and her mum's belief in her.

Full-time or part-time athletes: You've got to have balance, whether that's your partner, family, whatever, it's a package deal. Sitting around without work creates a sense of apathy.

Being positive: In the worst situation in the world you can still find something to take out of it, even if it's a bloody big lesson.

In Young's footsteps

If Valerie Vili is the shot put queen, Valerie Young is the queen mother. Young enjoyed a remarkable 20-year international career from the mid-1950s - and held the national record for 38 years until Vili broke it.

In many ways, the the 68-year-old Cantabrian's story mirrors that of Vili. In other respects it holds lessons.

Like Vili, Young (nee Sloper) was a shy, stooped teenager when she hit the national scene, and credits her success to coach Valdy Briedis.

Her Olympic debut was at 19, when she bought a new pair of white sandshoes for the 1956 Melbourne Games.

"I was a country kid who had come into town," says Young. "All of a sudden, there were all these people who spoke all sorts of languages and were taller and stronger."

Rather than be overawed, she extended her world junior record and was fifth. She dominated the Commonwealth Games, winning three consecutive golds.

But she never snared an Olympic medal, finishing fourth in 1960 and 1964.

"When it came to the Olympics, I only ever competed against the Europeans every four years.

"Vili needs to compete against those who are up there with her."

A major problem in Young's era was drugs. The first women's Olympic shotput champion, 1948 gold medallist Micheline Ostermeyer of France, was a pianist who celebrated by performing a Beethoven recital at her team headquarters.

But most throwers in the 1950s, 60s and 70s concentrated on strength, not rhythm.

Many used steroids, and one, Tamara Press, Olympic champion in 1960 and 1964, vanished from international competition when sex tests were introduced.

"I did notice over the years there were athletes whose faces and voices changed and you were always suspicious," says Young.

"Tamara Press had a very deep voice and she's the only woman who has sent chills down my spine."

With drugs still a problem today, Young's advice to Vili is to get on with her own work and have faith in administrators' ability to catch cheats.

And her secret to longevity?

"It's the journey. Enjoy being fit. When you are fit, life seems more highlighted.

"It's about meeting people and the smell of the grass when they've just cut it and you're going for a run.

"Your training regime is a foundation for life; if you don't put the work in, nothing is going to come automatically."