Athletics: Vili to square off against her old rival

Valerie Vili. Photo / Dean Purcell

World and Olympic shot put champion Valerie Vili's progress under her new coaching regime faces a stern test this weekend.

Vili will face another searching examination when she engages Belarusian nemesis Nadzeya Ostapchuk at the British Grand Prix Diamond League athletics meeting at Gateshead on Saturday.

Ostapchuk ended Vili's unbeaten run that began in late 2007 at this year's world indoor championships and repeated the dose at their first Diamond League encounter in Shanghai a few months later.

Vili, who has a season's best of 20.57m, won the next Diamond League round in New York in the absence of her rival with a throw of 19.93m to lead the league standings on six points to Ostapchuk's four.

However, the Belarusian fired a warning two weeks ago when she won her national open title with a throw of 20.95m in Grodno - the world's best this season.

"I came to the [Belarus Open] championships after three weeks of heavy training and was looking forward to using that technical work in a competitive atmosphere," Ostapchuk told the IAAF website.

"I'm happy that I managed to show nearly my best. I only threw further in 2005 than this weekend in Grodno. I wanted to break my own [21.09m] national record."

Vili said she had been making good progress under new coach Didier Poppe, who replaced long-time mentor Kirsten Hellier in April.

"I'm pretty confident with the changes that have been made to my technique and I'm working very hard to master that," Vili told Radio Sport yesterday.

"I know that I have to go backwards before I can go forwards, but I'm still improving slowly on my technique. There's lots and lots of drills and lots of work being done on it."

After Gateshead, Vili will compete in meets at Paris, Monaco, London, Stockholm, Zurich and the World Cup in Croatia ahead of October's Commonwealth Games in New Delhi.

- NZPA