Former Javelin world record holder, Anna Bocson, 82, sends congratulations to new world champ Kelsey-Lee Barber
As Kelsey-Lee Barber continues to celebrate her incredible world championship-winning javelin throw in Doha, former world record holder Anna Bocson sends congratulations from Adelaide.
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Australia’s only female javelin world record holder, South Australian Anna Bocson, has expressed her joy at watching fellow thrower Kelsey-Lee Barber crowned world champion at the World Athletics Championships in Doha.
The 82-year-old — who claimed the world record in 1958 with a throw of 57.4m at the Commonwealth Games in Cardiff — said from her home in Adelaide’s northeast that she was thrilled for Barber, who won the world title with a throw of 66.56m.
“I’m so glad that an Australian can win that title and I wish her all the best for the future, with next year the Olympics in Tokyo and I hope she’ll do well there,” Bocson said.
“I hope she can produce again the same things as she did in Doha to win her world title.
“I wish her all the very best.”
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Bocson, who was born in Poland in 1936, was inducted into the Athletics Australia Hall of Fame earlier this year as recognition of her stunning career throughout the 1950s and ‘60s.
Bocson — then Anna Wojtaszek — came to Australia to compete at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics after which she then emigrated to South Australia.
Two years later, she became world record holder, an honour she held for three months before her distance was broken by the Soviet Union’s Birutė Zalogaitytė, who threw a distance of 57.49.
She first picked up a javelin in the early 1950s in Poland after being spotted at an athletics camp.
“I was a very good runner. I ran the Polish national in 400m and cross country and then we had camps and there were different coaches and they encouraged us … running, javelin and shot put,” she said.
“I liked the javelin and I picked it up and I was quite good straight away. The coach encouraged me and from then on, I was just throwing. They said: ‘Forget about running and just throw the javelin’ and that’s what I did.”
Next came the 1956 Olympics, a move away from Communist Poland and the beginning of a decorated javelin career in Australian colours, culminating in a Commonwealth gold medal with her 1958 world record and two more Olympic appearances.
“I was always the shortest but I was always the strongest in my mind.
“Every time I threw I broke the Australian record. I won five or six Australian titles (she won six).”
She recalled her own world record effort.
“When I broke the world record, it was my fourth throw. My first throw was a good throw then two I had out of sector — one almost hit some runners, I threw and it went right … but anyway, then the fourth one; there were about four flags indicating various countries and their throws and there was even the world record. And I threw and mine went even further. And I looked! And I couldn’t believe my eyes!
“It was cold, and I had a rag and I threw the rag over my head. I just could not believe.
“And they said: ‘World record!’, and the girls all came around me and congratulated me. It was amazing.
“The Russians had the world record at the time and they couldn’t believe that a Polish girl who was competing for Australia — a capitalist country — had the world record.
“But three months later, a Russian girl got it back.”
Bocson, who coached herself, said she amazed at the professionalism of the modern day athletes that enabled them to throw distances of more than 70m.
And her advice to Barber is to savour her win.
“There are just things that you will always treasure, that you did things,” she said.
Originally published as Former Javelin world record holder, Anna Bocson, 82, sends congratulations to new world champ Kelsey-Lee Barber