yOhan’s cousin looks a little pissed when asked to talk about why he’s taking his health break from competitions. “Technical problems,” chanted by the 29-year-old, were the deciding factor in the emergence of many “physical construction sites.” “But” by far the best spear-thrower of recent years confirms, all this is “nothing decisive”.
Johannes Vetter wants to take a two-week break and give the “medical team” freedom to act so that all complaints can be resolved. He has canceled his planned starts at Ostrava this Tuesday and Hengelo on June 6. Already in Dessau last week he gave up his participation after he was dumped.
Will his cousin slow down again? Last season, the 2017 world champion traveled to Tokyo as the clear favorite with an impressive streak of numerous throws all plummeting beyond 90m for the supposedly certain gold medal. But at the Olympics, the best athlete in the world, who cultivated a very strong style, could not cope with the smooth surface of the carriage. As the ninth to defeat, he had to miss the Olympic stadium before the final.
In the current season, which has two major events in store with the World Championships in Eugene in July and the European Championships in Munich in August, Vetter has so far been unable to boast of last year. His slender 85.64-meter performance was his best to date, achieved in a pitcher’s meet with his local club, LG Offenburg. The 29-year-old is ranked sixth in the list of the best players in the world, even in the German standings he is still in third place behind Andreas Hoffmann (86.52) and Julian Weber (86.09).
The best of the season so far is Anderson Peters of Grenada, who scored 93.07 meters in the Diamond League meet in Doha on May 13. Vetter was absent there, not because of injury, but because of wounded pride: he complained at the time that he had received neither entrance fees nor a business-class flight from the organizers. A late return flight with no legroom in economy class would have been “completely counterproductive to the competition in Offenburg the next day”, he explained to Sport1 why he was not flying to Doha.
He was still able to throw Offenburg, but he didn’t do much after that. Technical problems were followed by physical problems. The “foot, shoulder, and right hamstring” are the problem areas. Muscle groups, ligaments and tendons are overextended due to smaller evasive movements. The difficult search for “tuning the screws” with national coach Boris Obergvoll takes priority now. His actual career goal, the world record set by Czech Jan Zelezny (98.48), will have to wait. Vetter was already up to 72 centimeters close to the record. Hence it is not far from the 100m mark.
But for now, Johannes Vetter is no longer properly transmitting his authority again. He gave himself a 14-day break, “if it’s four weeks”, he’ll have to put up with. Is the World Cup and the European Championship in danger? “I don’t think about it yet.”
