Sporting achievements: Biggest shot in the arm

Valerie Vili

How would Valerie Vili describe a year of putting shots record distances and conquering all but one Belarusian?

"Fan-f***en-tastic!"

Even her words land with a thud.

After the towering Kiwi athlete of Tongan and English parentage steadily improved to be No 2 in the world, Vili's ambition this summer is a little more recreational.

"I'm going to learn how to boogie-board," said the young Auckland shot-putter.

Vili was 20 when she strode out into the Helsinki Arena in August and threw her way to a bronze medal at the World Athletics Championships. There she pushed her personal best out to 19.87m and on Thursday broke the New Zealand allcomers and residents record with 19.38m at the Porritt Classic in Hamilton.

Vili is a hot favourite to win gold at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne in March. That medal and breaking 20m are her two main aims for 2006.

Currently her closest rivals in the Commonwealth are Singapore's Guirong Zhang and Jamaican Kimberley Barrett. Both are ranked 18th equal but are more than 1m adrift. Nigeria's Vivian Chukwuemeka, who won gold in Manchester ahead of Vili, is ranked 23rd in the world.

Vili (nee Adams) remains New Zealand's most under-utilised sports sponsorship opportunity - young, gifted, Lomu-sized and with the most colourful turn of phrase in women's sport.

While Vili eventually eclipsed Helsinki silver medalist Olga Ryabinkina, of Russia, in the IAAF world rankings, world champion Nadezhda Ostapchuk, of Belarus, is more than a metre ahead of the New Zealander.

Can Vili haul her in? "Within time," she said.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY