| Samuels off to a flyer in desert |
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The Sunday Herald Sun May 16, 2010 WORLD discus champion Dani Samuels's desert warm-up for the Commonwealth Games brought a promising result. Lining up in the Doha Diamond League meeting yesterday, Samuels opened her account with a throw of 64.67m, which saw her lead until the penultimate round. She was pipped by world championships silver medallist Yarelis Barrios, of Cuba, with a heave of 64.90m. Limited to four throws in hot, dusty conditions at the Suheim bin Hamad Stadium, the Australian followed with a foul and marks of 64.43m and 58.60m. Aiming to throw consistently above 64m in the lead-up to the Games in New Delhi in October, Samuels says her performance in Doha has her in good shape. "We only got four throws, but I'm pretty happy overall with how I went. I'm a bit bummed to get pipped. But I got two throws over 64m and my foul was decent, too, it just went out of the sector,'' she said. Samuels's Diamond League debut follows her title win at the IAAF Osaka Grand Prix meet in Japan last weekend, where she took out the crown with a meet record heave of 63.75m. "I wasn't really happy with my series in Osaka but the overall result was pretty good. I was looking to throw 64m here and it's happened twice so that's pretty good,'' she said. Samuels will sit out the next two rounds of Diamond League discus action, returning at Lausanne on July 8. Commonwealth Games-nominated athletes Ben Offereins (400m), Jeremy Roff (1500m), Eloise Wellings (5000m), Steve Hooker (pole vault), Fabrice Lapierre (long jump) and Mitchell Watt (long jump) will take up the Diamond League challenge in Round 2 of the series in Shanghai, China, next Sunday. |