In case you’re watching the Neeraj Chopra Classic and are having some intrusive thoughts — like wondering if the javelin has ever injured anyone during a competition, allow us to introduce you to Juha Laukkanen. The Finnish javelin thrower is a man who has managed to injure not one, but two people(!) with his javelin throws.
Thankfully, he’s long retired now. But over the course of his career, Laukkanen injured two judges during competitions (accidentally, and not intentionally, it must be noted).
He first injured a judge in his arm in 1994 during the Bislet Games in Oslo, Norway. Clips from this day that are still available on YouTube show the judge pull out the javelin immediately and throw it on the grass. Not sure that one would have registered a distance.
Laukkanen, meanwhile, wasn’t done. While competing in another event four years later, the FInnish javelin thrower hit Engelbert Perchthaler, a judge whose job was measuring the javelin throw distances, right in the stomach!
The story of that particular javelin throw incident goes that Perchthaler was blinded by the sun and didn’t see the javelin flying directly towards him.
“I was distracted for a brief moment and couldn’t see the spear in the air. I only saw it shortly before it came toward me. But by then it was already too late,” Perchthaler said years later in an interview.
And in case your next question was, what happens to you when a javelin hits you, here’s what Perchthaler had to say: “The spear impaled me at the level of my belly button. I didn’t realize what was happening to me, I just heard a dull thud. But I didn’t feel any pain, just a slight tingling. No, I didn’t feel fear or panic. Quite the opposite. I lay down very slowly on the grass.”
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So what should you do when a javelin hits you? Well, don’t pull it out.
“Out of reflex, I pulled the spear out of my stomach myself. That was wrong. That exacerbated the internal bleeding,” Perchthaler said.
Of course, Laukkanen is not the only man to hurt someone accidently during a javelin throw competition.
In July 2007, during a Golden League meeting in Rome, Finland’s Tero Pitkämäki hurled the javelin which was a little off mark, and ended up hitting French long jumper Salim Sdiri. Sdiri was released from the hospital within 24 hours, but suffered serious internal injuries, including a torn liver and a punctured kidney.
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There are other incidents where the javelin ALMOST hit someone. Like this incident where Thomas Rohler’s throw crossed the 90m mark, but ended a few metres short of the camera guy. Rohler, who is a Rio 2016 Olympics gold medallist, is currently competing at the Neeraj Chopra Classic event.
Quick history of javelin throw
Javelin throw, which evolved from the military practice of hurling spears during wars, has been an Olympics event since London 1908. Of course, the sport was also at the Ancient Olympics, where the original javelin was made of olive wood.
As the sport grew at the Olympics, a German thrower, Uwe Hohn, came onto the scene. History will remember him as the first man to hurl the javelin past the 100m mark. (he was also one of Neeraj Chopra’s coach.) Till date, he is the only human to throw the javelin past the fabled 100m mark. In 1984, Hohn went much past 100m: he sent the javelin to a whopping distance of 104.8m in Berlin.
That kind of distance will be near impossible right now.
Why?
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Because the men’s javelin was redesigned in 1986 for safety reasons and to prevent the high number of flat landings (when the javelin doesn’t stick into the ground). The javelin’s centre of gravity was also moved forwards by four centimetres. It must be noted that even now, javelins can fly at speeds touching 60mph (96kmph).
