Athletics: Long road back for Beatrice

By Murray McKinnon

In Monte Gordo, Portugal

Beatrice Faumuina has had to go back to square one in the lead-up to her defence of her world discus title at Seville in Spain on August 23.

A back injury which kept her out of most of this last season of competition in New Zealand also put the 24-year-old Faumuina back to scratch in training and preparations.

She is now in a training camp in the south of Portugal with the rest of the New Zealand team before crossing the border to Seville on Wednesday.

"I've taken the last year to start all over again. I've had to rediscover myself and it hasn't been easy," Faumuina said.

She had the injury before she won a Commonwealth Games gold medal in Kuala Lumpur last year.

"I was burned out and all I wanted was to win big and come home. Even if I had to throw with only one arm and one leg I would have done it," she said.

The road to recovery has been slow but Faumuina is happy with her progress even though she has had only six competitions since September.

Her last four outings show the right trend. In the United States last month she threw 61.77m, followed by 62.55m.

In Thurrock, England, on August 1, she was out to 63.10m and a week later in Belgium achieved her best this year, 64.28m.

"It has been five months of waiting to see that everything is right. Putting it bluntly, a waiting and patience game," Faumuina said. "The back is good now, no complaints."

Her coach, Les Mills, also had to change his thinking on how to approach the training during this difficult time.

"He had to bring in new exercises in the weight training - squatting was out of the question."

Ten athletes have thrown further than Faumuina this year, headed by 1996 Olympic silver medallist Natalya Sadova, of Russia, with 70.02m.

"The gold medal will be won with a distance further than I threw two years ago, that's for sure," Faumuina said.

She is fiercely competitive and is not fazed that so many athletes have better distances.

She said: "To date I haven't gone into a competition where I haven't struggled."

This was never more evident than in Athens in 1997, where she only just made the final after two fouls and suffered a similar crisis in the final.

"I really don't know if I will win again, but I know there will be an expectation for me to do it," she said. "The public think that if you win one, they expect you to win everything after that."

As in Athens, Faumuina will have the support of her mother, Roini.

Whatever the outcome, Faumuina already has a high public profile.

"The awareness of track and field has increased with what has happened so far.

"I have a vehicle with my name on it and you can tell the other drivers are saying, 'guess who the driver is.'

"I've had conversations with complete strangers at traffic lights - I've met some real neat people."

Faumuina's qualifying round in the discus will be from 6 am on August 22 (NZ time) and the final is on August 24 at 5.15 am.