Nordic God pursues more glory

To untangle the mystery of how Andreas Thorkildsen, of all strong-armed men of Viking stock, became the world’s best javelin thrower, it may be helpful to know that his father threw the javelin competitively in Norway and introduced it to him when he was 11.

The javelin thrower Andreas Thorkildsen, 29, is a superstar in his native Norway, but he trains in the off-season as an all-but-anonymous visitor in Southern California.

“He took me and my brother out to the track,” Thorkildsen said. “And my brother couldn’t make it work, but to me from the first time I picked it up, it was like, I can do this.”

Thorkildsen also has an unusually flexible chest, a direct and technically uncluttered style and the capacity not to gradually lose his mind as he dedicates his professional life to repeating, if never quite perfecting, the same motion again and again.

“On the bad throws, you wonder why you still do it,” he said. “On the good throws, you remember.”

Thorkildsen, the first man to hold the Olympic, world and European titles simultaneously, also has an ability to stay loose under pressure.

“Over the years he’s gotten more and more professional about everything -- what he’s eating, how much he sleeps, how he trains and all that -- but as a person he’s still laid-back,” Asmund Martinsen, his coach, said.

Mike Hazle, the United States javelin champion and a close friend of Thorkildsen, said, “The guy’s more Californian than a Californian.”

Hazle says javelin throwers are anonymous in the United States. “You’re the two-time Olympic champion?” he said. “So what? When’s ‘Monday Night Football’? That’s why he loves it.”

The javelin, thrown by the ancient Greeks in bellicose moods, has been part of the modern Olympics since 1908. There have been changes, including the switch from steel to carbon-fiber javelins and the shift in the men’s javelin’s center of gravity in 1986 to improve the tip’s ability to land and stick and also to keep competitors from throwing too far.

The record book was wiped clean then, and Jan Zelezny’s 98.48M throw from May 1996 remains the rather otherworldly standard: more than 5M better than any other man, which may make it a more mathematically impressive world record than Usain Bolt’s 9.58 seconds in the 100M or 19.19 in the 200.

Zelezny, who also has the four other best throws with the new javelin, retired in 2006. Thorkildsen describes Zelezny’s style as rotational, based more on lower-body flexibility, and describes his own as more linear.

Thorkildsen’s best effort remains 91.59M from the Oslo meet in June 2006, although he did manage to deprive the retired Zelezny of the Olympic record. Thorkildsen’s 90.57M throw allowed him to defend his title in the Bird’s Nest stadium in Beijing in 2008.

“It’s a big deal personally because you will always be compared to former greats,” Thorkildsen said. “Zelezny had the Olympic records, and he’s the best thrower, and to be able to get the Olympic record from him is something I’m very proud of.”