Outside of the pandemic, German javelin thrower Johannes Vetter is putting the phrase “new normal” into context.
This season, the 6’1″ and 103-kilogram athlete from Dresden has got accustomed to throwing distances of 90 meters or more. This season, Vetter, a favorite for Olympic gold in Tokyo, has seven such throws.
His most recent accomplishments have drawn parallels to one of the finest, world record holder Jan Zelezny. According to World Athletics, the Czech’s 14 throws over 90 meters in 1995 set a single-season record. Vetter continues to live in the shadow of the Czech great, but for how much longer is the question?
In September, Vetter came close to breaking Zelezny’s record of 98.48 meters set in the mid-1990s.

Officials were caught napping during the Continental Tour Gold event in Chorzow, Poland, and had to sprint to the far end of the field to recover the javelin. Vetter’s 97.76-metre run was the closest anybody has come to changing history since Zelezny in 1996.

The 28-year-old has made ‘consistency’ his middle name in the year of the postponed Olympics. He has won four competitions in a row with 90-metre throws in a short period of time. Only Zelezny, who won five stints in a row in the same year, has a better record at this distance.

Vetter, who is built like an oak and as powerful as an ox, has combined skill and force to become an awe-inspiring javelin throw monster. Every other week, he launches carbon-fused meteors across stadiums, as the phrase “gravity-defying” becomes less of a cliché.

Vetter overcame wind and cold, two obstacles that often influence outdoor event participants, as if they were unimportant. Vetter recorded a world-leading distance of 94.20 meters on Wednesday at the World Athletics Continental Tour in Ostrava, Croatia. Vetter told the official broadcaster after the event, “I guess it was 12 degrees here, the wind was a bit tricky, always shifting a little, the wind directions, still 94.20 meters.”

In the third round of the Anhalt Meeting, part of the World Athletics Continental Tour Bronze series in Dessau, he threw 93.20 metros. He followed it up with 88.09 meters before deciding not to overextend himself and skipping the final two rounds.