Dame Valerie adds to her medal collection

Dame Valerie Adams increased her standing among New Zealand’s greatest Olympians when she picked up the bronze medal in the women’s shot put today.

Adams, 36, has now competed in five Olympics and won 2 gold medals, 1 silver and 1 bronze, besides finishing 7th in Athens in 2004, when she was just 19.

Fellow New Zealander, Maddi Wesche, just turned 22, threw 18.98m, a personal best, and finished 6th, an outstanding effort in her first Olympics.

Adams’ medal today was not totally expected. After she won the silver medal in Rio in 2016 (deprived of the gold by a huge throw by American Michelle Carter in her final round), Adams has given birth to two children and has not been approach the distances she was throwing before 2016.

She entered this competition with a world ranking of only about 10th, but she showed her fierce competitive streak to uncork a throw of 19.62m in the third round and that distance kept her in the top three for the rest of the competition.

There is no doubt Adams sits proudly among New Zealand’s greatest Olympians. Here’s how she compares with some of our other greats:

Ian Ferguson competed in 5 Olympics and won 4 golds 1 silver, total 5

Paul MacDonald competed in 3 Olympics and won 3 golds, 1 silver 1 bronze, total 5

Peter Snell competed in 2 Olympics and won 3 golds, total 3

Hamish Bond competed in 4 Olympics and won 3 golds, total 3

Valerie Adams competed in 5 Olympics and won 2 golds, 1 silver, 1 bronze, total 4

Danyon Loader competed in 2 Olympics and won 2 golds, 1 silver, total 3

Mark Todd competed in 7 Olympics and won 2 golds, 3 bronzes, total 5

Simon Dickie competed in 5 Olympics and won 2 golds, 1 bronze, total 3

Mahe Drysdale competed 4 Olympics and won 2 golds, 1 bronze, total 3

Lisa Carrington competed at 2 Olympics and won 2 golds 1 bronze, total 3*

Blyth Tait competed in 4 Olympics and won 1 gold, 1 silver, 2 bronzes, total 4

Barbara Kendall competed in 5 Olympics and won 1 gold, 1 silver, 1 bronze, total 3

*Lisa Carrington will compete at the Tokyo Olympics in coming days.

Adams looked composed and relaxed today and after opening with throws of 18.62m and 19.49m, she uncorked her 19.62m effort, which drew a wide smile. She finished with two fouls and 18.76m. The gold medal went to Lijiao Gong of China, whose best throw was 20.58m and who had five throws better than silver medallist Raven Sanders of the United States.

Wesche, threw a personal best of 18.65m in qualifying and today put together a sequence of 17.45m, 18.42m, 18.98m, 18.18m, 18.50m, 18.47m to show she had raised her performances to a new level.

After her event, Adams was understandably very emotional when she was interviewed.

“This means so much more than winning my gold medals," Adams said, referring to the fact that this medal had been won since the birth of her children. “I've worked so hard to be here today, to put myself in a situation where I had the opportunity to try and win a medal for New Zealand.

“I had two humans between Olympics and they inspired me – I keep imagining they are here."

Adams spoke about being away from her family for months, and thanked her coach, Dale Stevenson. "He took me on nine months ago. I had to move to Christchurch, there was toing and froing form Auckland to Christchurch. It’s paid off. I’m a proud Kiwi.”