When javelin thrower Johannes Vetter zapped through social media on his cell phone in the past few days, he was sad and humbled at the same time. It’s “frustrating,” says the 30-year-old, when he follows how the competition is preparing for the upcoming World Championships in Budapest (from August 19), “and you’re sitting at home”. Vetter threw 80.82 meters in Leverkusen at the end of July, one day before the nomination deadline. In order to jump into the World Cup squad, he would have had to make the norm, 85.20 meters. Instead of chasing medals, Vetter, the 2017 world champion and German record holder, now has to get well again. And so it is also a bit symbolic for German athletics in the pre-Olympic year 2023.
Injuries are constant companions in Vetter’s career. World Cup bronze in Doha 2019 followed a foot operation after cartilage damage. He has been plagued by persistent shoulder pain since the winter of 2021. “Gird” is the preliminary diagnosis, throwing shoulder in German. The head of the humerus does not run smoothly in the joint socket. “Although the MRI shows no damage, Johannes was always in pain,” says coach Boris Obergföll, himself once a medal-hung and pain-ridden javelin thrower. Both now assume that the anterior capsule of the shoulder joint is thickened. Vetter can contain the problems with physiotherapy; One treats the shoulder too much, Vetter said recently, but it is also quickly overstimulated. Keeping the balance in this game until the 2024 Olympics will be “extremely difficult”.
Vetter is 1.88 meters tall and weighs 105 kilograms, a concentrated load of power and dynamism, and with this mixture the native of Dresden has dominated the scene for years. Moved to LG Offenburg and Obergföll in 2014 with a best performance of 79.78 meters, Vetter shot up to his first German record (94.44 meters) and the world championship title in 2017. (“That was my most emotional competition because my mother home in bed before she died of a brain tumor.”) With his second national record (97.76 meters) in Chorzow, Vetter indicated that even the 100-meter limit that he once set himself in the area of the within reach. (With 104.80 meters with the old javelin, Uwe Hohn is the only one who has surpassed this mark to date). Vetter at least came within 72 centimeters of the world record of the Czech Jan Zelezny. To date, the German has scored 28 throws over the 90-meter mark, and only Zelezny is better there.
Only: Hardly any athletic discipline causes such high stress on the body as javelin throwing. At the 2021 Olympic Games, Vetter found himself injured on a track that was too soft and didn’t even make it to the final. It was one of two competitions that year that he didn’t win – of all things. “Tokyo keeps popping up in my head like a flashback,” admits Vetter. To ensure that slips like this don’t happen again, his trainer at the Italian manufacturer Mondo, who makes the plastic tracks for the big title fights, worked on developing a hardened surface.
Open detailed view
Picture from happier days: Johannes Vetter threw the German record in Chorzow in 2020, which is still valid today.
(Photo: Lukasz Szelag/AFP)
But in Budapest, neither Vetter – who already missed the World Cup and European Championships in 2022 – nor his once-successful colleagues will use it: Andreas Hofmann, who came second at the European Championships in 2018, is out after a cruciate ligament tear, while Thomas Röhler, the 2016 Olympic champion, is still a long way from old creativity after worrying about injuries. “And the offspring is missing,” Vetter knows. From his point of view, his trainer summarizes the reasons in a concise formula: “Our selection system in school and in youth training for the Olympics has broken down,” says Obergföll.
Vetter is involved in politics and social causes
Despite all the worries, Vetter himself makes a solid impression in the conversation. He has long since arrived in Offenburg, was elected to the municipal council and sits there for the free voters in the committees for family and youth as well as in the school and sports committee. He is also on the supervisory board of the footballers at Offenburger FV. Together with the former javelin throwing world champion Christina Obergföll, the TV presenters Paola Felix and Carmen Nebel, Vetter is on the board of trustees of the association for children with cancer in Freiburg. He wants to take responsibility, he says, and give something back for the support he enjoys as a federally funded sports soldier. When Frank-Walter Steinmeier was re-elected Federal President in 2017, Vetter was invited to the Federal Assembly, along with national soccer coach Hansi Flick and Bayern kicker Leon Goretzka.
In Budapest it will be reserved for Julian Weber, the current European champion, to fight for a medal – as the only representative from the German javelin department. In Offenburg, at Vetter’s home meeting, Weber won with 83.29 meters, Vetter managed 77.35. He wants to at least surpass the 85 meters this year, says Vetter, after which it should go back to full speed. Olympic victory or world record, what has priority? “Preferably both,” it comes like a shot from a gun. The head is not a bit tired yet.
