Revisiting the javelin controversy

The very first year of the existence of the blog I wrote an article entitled "the javelin controversy" which was motivated by the short-lived spanish style of the 50s. That article was going to become the most popular one of the 470+ posts of my blog. What did help was that at some point there had been a discussion in the Athletics Weekly forum on the Spanish Style Javelin Technique and somebody gave the link to my post. My blog was mostly unknown at that time and this helped to increase the audience. But that was years ago, the discussion in AW does not exist for many years now but the "javelin controversy" continues to attract readers. As of this writing it has 12.6 k views, out of a total of 320 k for the blog, close to 4 %.

Before writing about, what I like to refer to as, the "jabalina española" I would like to state clearly that I am in favour of rotational techniques. In the case of the hammer throw the rotations were facilitated by the replacement of the traditional wooden handle by a wire one (although a hammer throw involving a wooden handle is still in use in the Scottish Highland Games). In the case of the discus, the rotational technique allowed to reach distances that were unthinkable with the un-natural and arbitrarily fixed technique of the "greek style" (as if anybody knew how the ancients threw the discus). And in the shot put everybody is slowly moving towards the spinning technique, which allowed the current performances to be on par with the ones registered in the pre-doping-control era. But in the case of the javelin, the International Federation decided to kill the new technique in the crib instead of thinking of other methods that would have made the event safe. 

I have always been in admiration of the spanish style, although I know that there is some mythology concerning the performances. I have been referring to it from time to time in my blog. But what did decide me to write this article is that I found, by chance, a short video where Miguel de la Quadra Salcedo is telling succinctly the story of the style and makes a demo (but bear in mind that the video is from the 90s when de la Quadra was over 60 years old). You can watch the video (I hardcoded english subtitles) and then go on with reading the article.

I knew that the jabalina española evolved from the barra vasca but that was as far as my knowledge went. When I saw the video of de la Quadra I decided to dig deeper and learn something about this traditional basque throw. The first surprise was when I consulted the Wikipedia and I found that the weight for the barra was 7 kg (standardised to 7.257 kg, just as for the shot put) for men and 4 kg for women. There was no way people could throw such a heavy implement at 50 m. The answer is that the article was talking about the barra española of which there exist several local variants. I found the details in some blog post and all became clear. The barras aragonesa and castellana are heavy and the record with the heavy barra is just shy of 20 m. But the basque is different, longer and with a weight of just 3.5 kg. It is made of steel with a "head" of a diameter of (roughly) 3 cm and an overall length of 40 cm, tapering towards the "tail". The latter has a diameter of (roughly) 1.5 cm and  length of 110 cm. Thus the overall length of the barra is 1.5 m. The relatively lighter barra makes possible underhand throws with a run-up consisting of three turns. The movie below shows Manuel Clavero who still holds the record of the barra vasca with 56.39 m, established in 1960. (The women's record is just 36.96m, Karmele Olaizola from 1990, which makes one think that the women were throwing the same weight barra as men).  

The barra vasca was part of the Spanish National Championships from the 30s till 1963 but then disappeared only to survive in some regional competitions of "rural" sports. There are some efforts for its revival but I am afraid that the die is cast. The barra vasca could have left a fabulous legacy to the international athletics if World Athletics (it was called IAAF at that time) were less timorous but, alas, that was not to be. 

Félix Erauskín was a spanish thrower, with national titles in shot put, discus throw, javelin and also the barra vasca (with a personal best of 49.09 m). He participated in the 1948, London, Olympics in the discus throw and, in his interview, de la Quadra says that, in London, Erauskín made an exhibition of barra vasca throw. It is not clear whether that indeed happened but, on the other hand, the barra vasca was supposed to be a demonstration sport in the Berlin, 1936, Olympics (although, in the end that did not materialise). Erauskín was a great sportsman with a 50+ years career. He was master world champion in the 70+ category in 1979, just 8 years before his demise. But the most important moment in his career came in 1956. At 48 years of age he presented a new style for the javelin throw inspired by the barra vasca throwing technique. And he beat the national record. 

Erauskín throwing the javelin

The barra vasca specialists understood that the new technique could allow huge throws and they started experimenting with it. J.A. Iguarán (the first to throw over 50 m with the barra with a 52.61 record), de la Quadra (with a personal best of 48.29 m at the barra) and Clavero himself. Iguarán threw 77 m and de la Quadra reached 82.80 m at less than a metre from the world record. 

The disaster struck when de la Quadra, who was training in Paris, participated in a competition, on September 23rd, where, throwing in the rotational style, he managed, with 66.25 m, to beat Michel Macquet who held the french national record. (Macquet obtained his first french record with 64 m in 1954 but in 1956 he had already thrown 79 m). The world became aware of the new technique. In the meantime the progression in Spain was dazzling. Erauskín threw 74.32 on October 7th and 83.40 m on the 12th (at just 26 cm from the world record of J. Sidlo). Clavero threw 82.94 m on October 21st and on the 28th he reached 89.66 m, beating de la Quadra who was second with 83.80 m.

With de la Quadra throwing in spanish style in Paris, the cat was out of the bag. It was something so spectacular that the news agencies all over the world talked about this. At that time a short movie with the most interesting world news was usually shown in cinemas before the main attraction and the "spanish javelin" was shown everywhere. There is a funny story involving the 1932 olympic champion M. Järvinen (and world record holder from 1930 to 1936 with a 77.23 m personal best). In October 1956 he was alerted by a friend that there was a short movie from a competition in Barcelona where (practically) unknown  spaniards were throwing over 80 m with their new style. Järvinen went to the cinema and watched the short clip (twice) and exiting he called his friend T. Rautavaara (the 1948 olympic champion and a 75+ thrower) and asked him to meet him the next day. (Järvinen was 47 years old and Rautavaara 41). And the next morning, Järvinen, positioning himself at just ten metres from the throwing line, spinned and threw the javelin at over 80 m. Rautavaara was impressed and became converted to the spanish style. But it was too late for the Finns to go after the olympic medals in Melbourne. (It is really astonishing that S. Nikkinen who had improved the world record in June with a throw of 83.56 m was not selected for the Melbourne Olympics, held in late November, the motive being that he was out of shape). 

It is said that Rautavaara reached 84 m with the spanish style 

On October 24th, the IAAF took the decision to ban the "spanish style", invoking safety reasons, forbidding the athlete to turn his back to the landing sector until the throw is completed. (Had the spanish athletes remained discreet, presenting themselves in Melbourne and winning the olympic event in their revolutionary style, the history might have been different. But Franco had decided to boycott the Olympics so as to spite the Soviets and thus the whole matter is moot). In Spain things took some time before settling down. So, in the 1957 national championships the "spanish style" was still allowed and Erauskín won with a 81.76 m throw. 

Erauskín did not let himself become disheartened by the IAAF decision. He modified his style removing the turns but keeping the underhand throwing style. A few days after the IAAF decision he threw 72.76 m with his new style. But the IAAF would not have it, they banned this style also, requiring that throughout the entire process of the throw the javelin be kept at an overhand position. It was game over for the "jabalina española", victim of the International Federation timorousness. All the more so, since the underhand technique without turns was definitely not dangerous as the thrower could control the trajectory of the implement.

If you followed the clip with de la Quadra you must have noticed that he talks about Danielsen holding the world record with 81.30 m which is simply wrong. In 1955 it was Bud Held who had the world record with 81.75 m, a record broken by Nikkinen as we saw above. Danielsen became world record holder after his winning throw of 85.71 m in the Melbourne Olympics in November 1956. But this may be just a memory lapse of de la Quadra. What is somewhat more intriguing are the references to exceptional throws. This is unfortunately part of a certain mythology developed around the jabalina española. We find thus a reference to Erauskín throwing 94.50 m during en exhibition on April 1957 (using the rotational style). As for de la Quadra, he went to Puerto Rico to perfect his underhand style, working with the coach of the University of Puerto Rico, surpassing 89 m. But de la Quadra himself is talking about 94 m in the clip. Is this because we have a tendency to embellish the past? Anyhow there are hearsay's that Erauskín threw over 100 m and de la Quadra reached a mythical 112.30 m. Nobody knows whether these throws were indeed true. (The longest, more or less, documented throw is  a "mere" 99.52 m by P. Saarikoski). E. Danielsen, writing one year after his olympic victory, speculated that with the rotational style throws of over 120 m would have been possible. Unfortunately we will never see them.