Silver hug for a special mum

By DAVID LEGGAT

Tucked away in a corner of the vast City of Manchester Stadium sat the woman Valerie Adams calls mum.

So as soon as Adams had secured the silver medal in the shot put final before a packed crowd of 38,000, she made a beeline for Kirsten Hellier.

A quiet tear was shed as the former Commonwealth and Olympic Games javelin thrower and her protege hugged in delight.

Adams, who is yet to celebrate her 18th birthday, yesterday capped off a remarkable year.

In February she reeled off five national records in 20 minutes in the shot and hammer throw, and a week ago she crushed the field to win the world junior championship in Jamaica. That followed her world youth title a year ago.

Now here she was, having ripped out the biggest throw in qualifying, a national record of 17.63m in her first attempt, going head-to-head with the formidable Nigerian Vivian Chukwuemeka.

The two were by some distance the best athletes in the field. It just came down to who had brought her best game to the final.

The exuberant Chukwuemeka, who heaved the shot 17.13m in qualifying, managed 17.53m with her second effort, and that was enough to hold off Adams, who began with a moderate 16.87m, peaked at 17.45m with her third, but could get no closer.

Third place went to South African Veronica Abrahamse, with 16.77m, but in a sport dealing in centimetres, Adams was never threatened.

Her first reaction afterwards was purely instinctive. Adams' mother died of cancer in 2000. Since then, Hellier has taken her under her wing.

Adams, a Herald Junior Sports Award winner last year, described their relationship succinctly: "She's the first one I always go to. She's my family, my coach, my friend, my counsellor, my mother.

"People such as Kirsten and her mother have helped to replace that loss in my life. It's awesome.

"Kirsten's had the biggest influence you'll ever think of. She's travelled with me from home to Jamaica to here. If I'd been travelling alone, who knows where I'd have been right now?"

Adams, in purely physical terms the giant in the field at 1.93m (6ft 4in), towered over her 11 rivals yesterday.

Had she matched her qualifying throw, she would have had a medal of a finer hue draped around her broad shoulders. But any frustration she felt at being unable to repeat that in the final was well hidden.

Asked if she felt it was a gold lost rather than a silver won, she fixed the questioner - not this one - with a steely eye.

"I'm not disappointed at anything, buddy. I am happy, I'm over the moon. I had a fantastic time out there.

"I didn't throw as well as I wanted to, but at the end of the day I was happy with my performance."

Any nerves? Too right, as she explained in an anatomically graphic but easily understood manner.

"How many 17-year-olds go through this?" she asked, the adrenalin visibly still pouring through her half-an-hour after finishing the event.

Hellier has known the buzz of competition at the highest level.

Yet she insisted she derived as much pleasure from watching yesterday as from being out in the middle herself.

"She's such a special person," she said. "You know what she is capable of doing, and you want nothing but the best for her. You want her to get what she deserves, and that's exactly what she deserved today."

It was a good night for New Zealand. Hammer thrower Phil Jensen grabbed the silver in the diagonal corner of the stadium from Adams an hour later.

That took New Zealand's medal tally to three, after trap shooters Theresa Borrell and Nadine Stanton won the gold in the pairs at Bisley, several hours drive south in Surrey, earlier in the day.