Athletics: Vili's reign under attack

September 23, 2007, mean much to you? A few fans with long memories might recall it was the day the All Blacks put Scotland to the sword with a crushing 40-0 pool success at Murrayfield in the Rugby World Cup.

Yet, perhaps a more significant moment for Kiwi sport happened that same day at the Gottlieb-Daimler Stadium in Stuttgart. Need any clues? World Athletics Final. Women's shot put. Still not got it? Okay, this was the date of Valerie Vili's last defeat.

The Kiwi shot put ace has since swept to 28 successive victories in finals stretching over more than two-and-a-half years. It is the longest unbeaten streak in athletics. Even Jamaican sprint sensation Usain Bolt was defeated by Asafa Powell in Stockholm over 100m ahead of the Beijing Olympic Games.

On that September day in Stuttgart, Nadzeya Ostapchuk of Belarus pipped Vili by 0.05m. Since then the Auckland-based athlete has held a vice-like grip on the event, landing the Olympic title in Beijing, defending her world outdoor title in Berlin, and the world indoor crown in Valencia.

In the early hours of tomorrow, Vili's unbeaten record comes under arguably its stiffest examination yet in the shape of the aforementioned Ostapchuk. Vili qualified second to Ostapchuk at the world indoor championships in Doha last night, recording 19.81m to Ostapchuk's 20.09m.

Vili, 25, is, of course, not easily ruffled. Yet she will have noted her rival's monster 21.70m to land the Belarussian indoor championships in Mogilev last month - more than half-a-metre further than the Kiwi's best of 21.07m. With this performance Ostapchuk, 29, catapulted to third on the all-time indoor lists and produced the biggest throw indoors or out for a staggering 22 years - back to an era when the old Eastern bloc dominated the women's shot.

After the Soviet Union collapsed, Belarus gained its independence in the summer of 1991 and like many new, ambitious nations desperate to raise their global standing it saw sport as means to garner prestige. It adopted the old Soviet-style school sports model. Success has been gradual but, at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Belarus bagged an impressive haul of 17 medals - not bad for a nation of a little under 10m people.

Ostapchuk thrived under this system. After she won a regional competition, the system was not about to let her talent be squandered. Aged 15, the tomboy who "liked to run over roofs at construction sites" moved away from her parents and was invited to attend the Olympic Reserve College in Brest.

With no club structure to speak of in Belarus, talented children are educated, live and train at the sports centres. The watchword is discipline, but life is tough as Ostapchuk recalls in a past interview.

"It was hard when I entered the Olympic Reserve College. We weren't given much to eat mainly potatoes and pasta. If I'd told my mother, she'd have taken me home. Some students had white bread and others had jam - so we shared. It was a true test of endurance."

The system, though, worked for Ostapchuk, who is a keen artist and accomplished accordion player away from the track. In 1998 she landed the world junior title and later moved to the capital of Minsk to be coached by Aleksandr Efimov.

She landed the 2005 World title in Helsinki and has a devoted fan club who, somewhat bizarrely, regularly pick her up from the airport in a convoy of cars and take her by road to her hotel.

Yet since striking gold in Finland the Belarussian has had to pay second fiddle to Vili. Until now, maybe?

Ostapchuk was guarded ahead of tomorrow's throwing but Efimov said of her 21.70m throw: "She has showed results like this many times in training, but this is the first time she has done this in competition. She has gained a lot of confidence from this."

Neither he, nor Ostapchuk, are under any illusions as to the size of the challenge in Doha.

"She [Ostapchuk] is clever, fast and strong, but Valerie Vili is always in good shape. Nadzeya understands that to compete she too needs to be in perfect shape."

Meanwhile Nadine Kleinert, the world championship silver medallist to Vili, believes knocking her off her perch is one of the most daunting challenges in athletics. The 34-year-old German shattered her personal best with 20.20m at the World Championships in Berlin last year, but still finished 0.24cm adrift.

"She [Vili] is 8cm taller than me and has more weight, but is as fast as me and therefore has more of an advantage," said Kleinert, who will also compete tomorrow. "