Premier League new boys Stoke City are on the public’s radar for two main reasons: making Arsene Wenger cry; and delivering the most dangerous set-pieces in the league. The man behind these incredible throw-ins is of course Rory Delap, and now 12 games deep in the season, he is responsible for seven of the Potters’ goals. The human sling-shot has now amazingly been headhunted to compete as a javelin thrower in the 2012 London Olympics by Athletics Ireland. The Republic of Ireland international was a schoolboy javelin champ, but bizarrely chose to pursue a career in football instead…has he not seen the javelin WAGs??
Anyway, the world record is just shy of 100 metres, but when you consider that Delap’s longest throw this season is more than 45 metres with a considerably less aerodynamic object, maybe the midfielder is yet to find his true calling. Mary Coghlan, head of Athletics Ireland, said: “We don’t have any javelin throwers competing at the World Championships next year so of course we would welcome him. To reach the acquired standard would be extremely difficult but nothing is impossible. Certainly, if he wanted to try and throw the javelin for Ireland we would be more than delighted to have him.” A member of the Olympic Council of Ireland offered this insightful comment: “Rory certainly has one hell of an arm on him!” We assume he was drunk.
Now I don’t know about you, but whenever I think of javelins, the only mental picture I get is that scene from 999 years ago when some schoolkid slipped and fell on a javelin. That was pretty hardcore.
