Sotherton throwing away her big chance

Sotherton was challenging Sweden's world No 1 Carolina Kluft in the IAAF Combined Event Challenge in Gotzis, Austria, for five events, just as she did last time out at the European indoor championships in March. Then came the javelin and she was back in eighth place.

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A country which produced throwers of the quality of Tessa Sanderson, Fatima Whitbread and Steve Backley in the last quarter-century seems unable to resolve a problem for a woman so talented in other departments that Britain should be able to rely on her for a medal at this year's world championships in Osaka in August.

Last time Sotherton met Kluft, at the European indoors, she finished just 17 points behind — the nearest the Olympic, world and European champion has come to defeat in an unbeaten run stretching back to 2002. That was a pentathlon, a five-event discipline which does not include javelin. The javelin punctures Sotherton's pretensions to be a global challenger. No multievent athlete can aspire to be top of their field without throwing at least 40metres and preferably more than 45m. Sotherton's best in three attempts yesterday was a miserable 30.19m.

That is a good 10 metres less than when she won an Olympic bronze in 2004, and even that career best is 10 metres less than Kluft has thrown.

This inability to throw, which cost her a bronze at the last world championships and a potential silver at last year's European championships, now threatens to wipe out any prospect of a medal in Osaka.

Mick Hill, a former world and European medallist, took over Sotherton's coaching last winter from former world record-holder Backley's coach John Trower, who had been unable to devote the attention she needed since assuming direction of British sprinting two years ago.

Hill admitted last week that a lot of faults have crept into Sotherton's technique in that period and he had to take her back to the basics. It has been a lot more difficult to change Kelly than I thought it would. With her physical attributes, anything less than 40m is not good enough,' he said.

Sotherton, 30, had not expected to threaten Kluft in Gotzis. She had flu after the European indoors then various niggling injuries and reckons she lost five of the last 11 weeks' training, but said: I wouldn't have been here if I didn't think I could compete well.'

Sotherton was only 11 points behind Kluft overnight, but finished 471pts adrift after the javelin and 800m with a total of 6,210pts.

That leaves Sotherton second in the British rankings to 21- year-old rival Jessica Ennis, who missed Gotzis because of university finals but opened the season two weeks ago with a score of 6,398pts. Ironically, her score was also affected by a poor javelin.

One women's event in which Britain should have an embarrassment of riches for Osaka is the 800m. Marilyn Okora, 22, won the event at the Grand Prix meeting in the small Dutch town of Hengelo with a time of 2min 0.70sec, the second fastest time in the world this year and more than three seconds faster than she opened with last season.

Her British team-mate, Jenny Meadows, finished third, a quarter of a second behind, and Okora said: We've got some of the best 800m girls in the world and it's going to be hard to get picked for Osaka. I'm not going to get my head in the clouds with this win.'

Marlon Devonish, an Olympic sprint relay gold medallist, also opened his season in Hengelo, finishing third in the 100m in 10.25sec, faster than his opener last year and ahead of Americans Bernard Williams and Xavier Carter, both of whom have run faster than him in their careers.