Medal record
Vili after her victory at the 2009 World Championships.
Women's Athletics
Competitor for  New Zealand
Olympic Games
Gold	2008 Beijing	Shot put
World Championships
Gold	2007 Osaka	Shot put
Gold	2009 Berlin	Shot put
Bronze	2005 Helsinki	Shot put
World Indoor Championships
Gold	2008 Valencia	Shot put
Commonwealth Games
Gold	2006 Melbourne	Shot put
Silver	2002 Manchester	Shot put
IAAF World Cup
Gold	2006 Athens	Shot put

Valerie Kasanita Vili, ONZM (née Adams; born 6 October 1984) is a shot putter from New Zealand. She is the reigning Olympic, world and Commonwealth champion. She also currently holds the New Zealand, Oceanian and Commonwealth records for the shot put with a personal best of 21.07 m.

[edit] Career

In 1998 Vili first met former javelin thrower Kirsten Hellier; who would become her long-standing coach.

Vili first came to prominence when winning the World Youth Championships in 2001, with a throw of 16.87 m. She followed this up in 2002 by becoming World Junior champion, throwing 17.73 m, and had her first taste of senior success winning a silver medal at the Commonwealth Games with 17.45 m.

She finished fifth at the 2003 World Championships at eighteen years of age.

At her first Olympics in 2004, Vili finished eighth, while still recovering from an appendectomy she had just weeks before the competition.

The following year, she earned a place in the international elite, winning a bronze medal at the World Championships with a personal best throw of 19.87 m, and going on to finish second at the World Athletics Final. At the 2006 Commonwealth Games the 1.96 m-tall athlete won the gold medal, breaking the 20-year-old Commonwealth Games record of 19.00 m with a throw of 19.66 m.

In 2007, Vili went to the Osaka World Championships as a favourite to take a medal due to her being one of only three women to throw over 20m before the championships. In qualifying, Vili led the field with a throw of 19.45 m. Vili held second place behind Nadzeya Astapchuk throughout the final, but responded well in the last round with a mammoth throw and Commonwealth record of 20.54 m to take the gold. This made Vili one of few female athletes ever to take IAAF World Titles at youth, junior and senior level.^[1]

In 2008 Vili broke the Oceania record in winning her first World Indoor Title in Valencia (20.19 m).

At the Beijing Olympics, she qualified for the final with the longest distance thrown, 19.73 meters, on her first attempt. She won the gold with a throw of 20.56 m, a personal best, beating Belarussian thrower Natallia Mikhnevich. It is the first Olympic gold medal in track and field for New Zealand since John Walker won the 1,500 meter race in 1976.

She also won the New Zealand Sports Award of the year in 2008.

At the 2009 Grande Prêmio Rio in Brazil Vili won the competition with a new personal best and Oceanian area record of 20.69 m. The throw was also the world leading distance for the event.^[2]

On the 16th of August 2009, Vili won the world championship in Berlin with a throw of 20.44 meters, ahead of the German Nadine Kleinert (20.20 PB) and Lijiao Gong of China (19.89 PB).

[edit] Personal life

Vili was born in Rotorua, New Zealand, to a Tongan mother (Lilika Ngauamo^[3]) and an English father.^[4] She is married to Bertrand Vili, a discus thrower from New Caledonia.^[5][6] Vili is a Latter-day Saint.^[7]

[edit] References

• IAAF profile for Valerie Vili

[edit] External links

• Vili wins the shot put title at the 2007 World Championships at YouTube
• Page with Photo, one of several at Sporting Heroes