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It had been more than a year since Latvian javelin thrower Vadims Vasilevskis won on foreign soil but the talented, although injury prone, 2004 Olympic Games silver medallist showed that he was still a force to be reckoned with as he won at the Samsung Diamond League meeting in Eugene, United States, on Sunday.
Vasilevskis won in difficult throwing conditions with 84.65m to see off the in-form Czech thrower Vítězslav Veselý, who was fourth at the 2011 World Championships.
"Today was good, normal. The first throw, I wanted to see how the left leg felt and then (if it was trouble-free), then really throw. It's good because this is just my second competition and, at my first competition, I threw just to see how my leg was after the operations (last winter)," commented Vasilevskis in Eugene.
"I think this was a good series for me. I can now look ahead to the European Athletics Championships and then the Olympic Games," he added.
Since his silver medal in Athens, Vasilevskis has had a series of frustrating fourth places at major championships including the 2006 European Athletics Championships as well as at both the 2007 and 2009 World Championships.
He failed to make it beyond the qualifying rounds at both the 2002 and 2010 European Athletics Championships, which has only served to increase his appetite to finally stand on the medal podium at the continental show piece, which this year will be held just across the Baltic in the Finnish capital Helsinki from 27 June to 1 July.
However, on his day, Vasilevskis can throw far, very far, indeed.
He holds the Latvian record with 90.73m, which he threw in 2007 and ranks him ninth on the all-time list, and has also thrown over 90 metres on two other occasions.
The men's javelin promises to be one of the highlights in Helsinki not least because the Finns are famous for their appreciation of the event and they have a home-grown hero to cheer in the shape of 2007 World Championships gold medallist Tero Pitkämäki.
In addition to Pitkämäki, Vasilevskis and Veselý, other potential medal contenders in a fascinating competition could include Norway's reigning European champion and two-time Olympic champion Andreas Thorkildsen, Germany's 2011 World Championships gold medallist Mattias De Zordo, Ukraine's 2012 European leader Oleksandr Pyatnytsya and Turkey's rapidly improving European Cup Winter Throwing winner Fatih Avan, who recently improved his national record to 85.60m.
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