Sophie returns to action at Halle throws comp

The British hammer record holder is set for her third outing of Olympic year, having last week thrown 70.65m – her best-ever seasonal opening throw – to finish third at the Jamaica International Invitational IAAF World Challenge meeting in Kingston.

That was backed up by a 71.71m throw at the National Stadium in Beijing on Wednesday.

The 24-year-old, who finished fourth at the IAAF World Championships in Beijing last August, twice extending her national record in the process, will take on a top-class field, including Poland’s world record holder Anita Wlodarczyk.

Sophie has competed at Halle every year since 2008, and was sixth last year with a throw of 68.41m.

This year she is looking to build on her performance in the Bird’s Nest Stadium, at the European Athletics Championships in Amsterdam, at the Olympic Stadium in July, before her second Olympic Games in Rio in August.

She said to me at the turn of the year of her ambitions in Brazil: “I think always the goal for me is to make it, one, to the final, two into the top eight, and then it’s where can it go from there?

“I don’t feel like I can say I want to get a medal, because it’s about the process of it.

“I just focus on what I have to do, because you can’t affect what the other girls are doing.”