'Pretty special experience': Teen javelin thrower learns from world's best

Teenage javelin thrower Jeff Collins, fresh from a sixth-placed finish (out of Australians) in the men's under 20 category at the Australian Athletics Championships, trained one-on-one with legendary athlete and coach Uwe Hohn in Ballarat on April 28, 2024.

Hohn, a German native, is the only athlete to launch a javelin more than 100 metres after he threw 104.80m in 1984.

He is known as the eternal record holder because not long after the feat, in 1986, the javelin was redesigned with its centre of gravity moved forward, leading to shorter throws.

He also coached Indian Neeraj Chopra, prior to his gold-medal win in the men's javelin throw at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Collins relished the opportunity to train with someone so highly regarded.

"It was lots of fun, it was a really great experience," he told The Standard.

"I wasn't going to pass up a chance to train with the greatest javelin thrower of all time. That was a pretty special experience."

Collins took took part in a 90-minute technical throw session with Hohn before a conditioning session at Ballarat's Federation University.

The Emmanuel College year 12 student said he would start implementing the lessons in the off-season period.

For now, he has a couple of months off throwing but is working on his speed and fitness as he looks to contest multi-discipline events next season.

Collins' Warrnambool-based coach Mark Jansz also attended the session to help improve his coaching skills.

He helped facilitate the meet-up through his connections with Casterton-raised Commonwealth Games gold medal javelin thrower Kathryn Mitchell. Hohn is her partner and coach.

"They (Hohn and Mitchell) had watched online Jeff compete on the Sunday and saw his results and flicked me a message and it sort of went from there," Jansz said.

"The offer of a training session with Uwe came up and it was probably too good of an opportunity to knock back obviously."

Jansz said the experience was very beneficial for both him and Collins.

"It was very insightful and gave Jeff and me a pretty valuable experience on how to prepare like an elite athlete or elite javelin thrower from a guy that's been on top of the world really," he said.

"Jeff did well, he learnt heaps, listened really well... There's some things that we can both take away to work on over the next six to 12 months to hopefully see where he goes.

"He's a bottom-age under 20 so he'll have the opportunity to compete in that age group again next year."