World Championships: How fear drove Dani Stevens back to podium

Eight years after she won a world title at 21, Dani Stevens has launched herself back onto a global podium.

Dani Stevens competes in the women’s discus final in London. Picture: AP.

After Dani Stevens finished fourth in the discus at last year’s Rio Olympics she took a good hard look at herself and saw fear.

When she reviewed the video footage of the Olympic final she saw fear on her face and she knew that was holding her back from fulfilling her potential in major competition. She vowed she would not compete “out of fear’’ again.

And when it came to yesterday’s world championships final, in the 11th year of her international career, she was an athlete reborn.

Eight years after she won a surprise world title at the age of 21, Stevens launched herself back onto a global podium, setting a huge personal best of 69.64m, a Commonwealth and Australian record, to win the silver medal.

She had banished the fear and replaced it with “controlled aggression’’, and that propelled her to the best performance of her career.

“I really, really wanted it and I really knew that I could produce a PB and I knew that might be enough to win a medal this year,’’ she said. “That unrelenting hunger (drove her) I guess. I wasn’t throwing out of fear, I was throwing and thinking about how I could absolutely nail this.’’

And she did, improving her personal best by a whopping 1.65m.

Stevens has been chasing another moment of glory like her breakthrough world title ever since, through three more world championships and two Olympic Games, getting closer all the time to fulfilling her potential without quite getting there, until now.

She said she finally felt physically and mentally in tune at this competition.

“Coming fourth in Rio last year was a really big motivator,’’ she said. “I’ve known we’ve been on the right track, it’s just about being able to unleash one in a pressure situation.

“On that last one I was just able to completely relax and unleash and I saw it had great height and I knew it was in the sector and then it bounced right near the 70m line and I thought “Holy…’’.

“I just wanted to throw what I knew I could throw and reach my potential because I knew I was in PB shape and I wanted to win a medal for Australia, and I got the Aussie record and the area record, which I didn’t even know what that was.”

But Stevens revealed that she knew such a throw was possible because she had been launching the discus similar distances in training at home in Sydney in the past two months,

“I’ve been having some really good throws in training, just those really rhythmical effortless ones that just come together … pretty much since June, I’ve been able to have some throws in training that were that good.’’

After going so close to the 70m mark, Stevens is now desperate to break that barrier. She has two more competitions in Europe in the next two weeks, in Birmingham next Sunday and in Brussels on September 1, to make the most of her current form.

“All I’m thinking about now is how close to 70 I was, so that’s the next goal,’’ she said. “I have always said I would be able to throw 70m and my lifetime goal is within reach and to win a medal again is fantastic. It’s amazing to be up on the dais again.’’

Stevens was never out of the top three in yesterday’s competition. Her first throw of 64.23m put her in third place and she continued to improve from there.

Her fourth throw of 66.82m lifted her into second place before that final monster throw of 69.64m secured her position and showed that she could compete with the dominant thrower of her generation, Olympic champion Sandra Perkovic.

The Croatian was in another class for most of the competition. Any of her best three throws would have won the title. She clinched the gold medal with her second throw of 70.31m and had four throws over 69m. France’s Melina Robert-Michon took the bronze medal with a best of 66.21m.

Stevens has long coveted the 23-year-old national record of 68.72m set by Romanian-born Daniela Costian and she was overjoyed to finally take it down.

“It’s definitely been gettable for a couple of years now,’’ she said. “The last couple of years I made sure I knew what the centimetres were so I would know if I had broken it or not. It’s almost a two-metre PB to win a silver medal.’’