Throwing himself into the spotlight

HOME FROM HOME/Anton Katayev:  ANTON KATAYEV watched the Olympic opening ceremony in Beijing with all the excitement of a promising young athlete who dreams of one day making it to the greatest stage of them all.

He took particular interest in Lopez Lomong, the 1,500-metre runner who led out the US delegation in China. The Sudanese-born athlete was granted American citizenship last year, having moved to the States at 16 after fleeing his homeland 10 years earlier due to civil war.

Russian-born Katayev, 17, would like nothing more than to emulate Lomong at some stage after making giant strides as a javelin thrower since he first arrived here with his mother four years ago seeking asylum.

Assigned to the Knockalisheen camp, his introduction to the javelin came when he entered St Clement's College in Limerick and fell under the tutelage of PE teachers Mike Lynch and John Sheehan.

Sheehan, a former decathlete, takes up the story. "He joined in PE classes and is just a very natural athlete. He's very good at javelin and shot and academically excellent on top of it.

"I'm interested in throwing events. Most kids kind of bowl it and it goes back to front but Anton just caught it and threw it.

"He's done a little bit of physical conditioning work but still hasn't done a huge amount of specific training and has thrown over 50 metres," Sheehan added.

It was only when he came to Ireland that Katayev took up the javelin, but puts a lot of his ability down to his upbringing.

"I didn't do any athletics when I was young in Russia. All the sports were free for everybody, so I did swimming and extreme swimming, where you learn to swim in your clothes and carry weights," Katayev explained.

"I did judo for three years when we moved to Moscow so I was pretty athletic from the start. The swimming helped with the javelin as my shoulder was pretty loose."

Like any youngster, he took part in as many sports as possible when he started at St Clement's, but javelin is where he believes his future lies.

"Javelin is my main event; I was doing shot putt, triple jump and long jump.

"But I'm six foot two or three so after about a year of training in the jumping events I started to feel pain in my knees so I quit them to concentrate on the javelin and shot," he said.

His progress has been excellent, breaking a long-held North Munster Schools intermediate javelin record of 50.08 metres last year with a personal best throw of 52.07 to win gold.

He bounced back from finishing second in the Munster Schools to win the All-Ireland gold at intermediate level last year and earn a place on the Irish Schools team in a four-nations event in Newport last summer.

His participation brought its own hurdles as he required both a visa to enter Britain and one to get back into Ireland. Both were granted and Katayev would make his international debut, despite still having two years left in secondary school.

Since then, Katayev and his mother Irina have been granted residency and have moved out of Knockalisheen. Young Munster have been keen to introduce him to the city's number one sport, but he plans to keep on throwing javelin and not rugby balls.

Katayev is also a member of Dooneen Athletic Club and Sheehan hopes he can stake his claim in the rich tradition of Limerick throwers.

"Limerick was always known as a throwing area and had generations of world champions in shot and hammer, even up to 20 years ago with the Hartigans and Derek Casey in the javelin. It certainly has fallen backwards but hopefully there's another batch coming through.

"Anton would be looking to make the European junior qualifiers. People are saying 'look at the 2012 Olympics' and you never know, with people at that age it can just take off. A javelin thrower can suddenly improve by 10 or 15 metres if it all goes right.

"He'll be looking to go towards 60 metres to get near what the likes of Terry McHugh threw in their final year in school, around 63 to 64 metres.

McHugh represented Ireland at four summer Olympic Games in javelin, along with two winter Olympiads, but Katayev is only just learning about him now.

"John (Sheehan) was talking about him on the way to a Munster training session in Cork at the weekend. He won the title 25 times or something.

"My goal is at least advance five metres a year. If I take it really seriously, set a goal for myself that I have to go to the Olympics, then I'll do it."