Dani Samuels

Dani Samuels

Sameuls at the 2010 Meeting Areva
Personal information
Born	(1988-05-26) 26 May 1988
Height	1.82 m (5 ft 11 1⁄2 in)
Weight	82 kg (181 lb)
Sport
Country	Australia
Sport	Athletics
Event(s)	Discus
Medal record World Championships Gold 2009 Berlin Discus throw Commonwealth Games Bronze 2006 Melbourne Discus throw Universiade Silver 2007 Bangkok Discus throw Gold 2009 Belgrade Discus throw
Updated on 14 August 2012.

Dani Samuels (born 26 May 1988) is an Australian discus thrower who in 2009 became the youngest ever female world champion in the event.^[1]

After winning the discus gold and shot put bronze medals at the 2005 World Youth Championships in Athletics, she went on to win the bronze medal in the discus at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne at the age of seventeen. She won the discus silver at the 2007 Summer Universiade and represented Australia at her first World Championships in Athletics soon after. She reached the final of the 2008 Beijing Olympics and improved significantly the following year to win the gold medal at the 2009 World Championships in Athletics.

Samuels is one of only nine athletes (along with Valerie Adams, Usain Bolt, Veronica Campbell-Brown, Jacques Freitag, Yelena Isinbayeva, Kirani James, Jana Pittman, and David Storl) to win world championships at the youth, junior, and senior level of an athletic event. Her personal best throws are 65.84 m for the discus and 16.30 metres in the shot put.

Career

Samuels was born in 1988 to mother Tracy Samuels and father Mark Samuels. She is the second eldest of 4 children and the family grew up in Merrylands, a suburb of Sydney and started athletics at Greystanes Little Athletics club.^{[citation needed]}

Samuels first attended Merrylands Public School, then moved onto Westfields Sports High School as a basketballer before changing to train with her coach Denis Knowles in the Westfields athletic program.^{[citation needed]}

Her first global appearance came in the shot put at the 2003 IAAF World Youth Championships at the age of fifteen, at which she finished 13th in the qualifying rounds. She returned to the competition two years later and demonstrated her potential by winning the bronze medal in the shot put with a new personal best throw of 15.53 m, but she showed that her abilities were also well-suited to the discus as she took the gold medal in that competition. Samuels also took part in the Australian Youth Olympic Festival in 2005, winning the shot put and taking second place in the discus throw.^[2]

The following year she opened her season with an appearance at the 2006 Commonwealth Games – her first major senior championship. She reached the shot put final, finishing twelfth overall, but again it was in the discus where she excelled, winning the bronze medal at the age of seventeen. She threw a discus personal best of 60.63 m to take home the title at the 2006 World Junior Championships in Athletics and was seventh overall in the shot put. Following this, she opted to focus solely on the discus throw at major tournaments. She closed the year with a sixth place performance at the 2006 IAAF World Cup, representing Oceania.^[3]

She became the joint Australian champion in the shot put with 'Ana Po'uhila at the start of 2007 and also won her first national title in the discus. She threw a near personal best of 60.47 m to take the silver medal behind Yarelis Barrios at the 2007 Summer Universiade.^[4] A few weeks later she took part in her first ever World Championships in Athletics. However, she just missed out on qualifying for the final round of the women's discus competition as she was the best performing non-qualifier.

In 2008 she won her second discus national title and improved her best to 62.95 m in Brisbane. She reached the Olympic final in the discus at the 2008 Beijing Games, throwing 60.15 m for ninth place. Competing at the 2009 Summer Universiade, she became the Universiade champion, beating Żaneta Glanc to the gold medal by a margin of nearly two metres.

She achieved a personal best throw is 65.44 metres at the World Championships in Berlin on 21 August 2009, winning her the gold medal. Samuels took part in the final edition of the IAAF World Athletics Final, but she was past her season's peak form and took fifth place with a sub-60 metre throw. She started strongly the following year, opening her season with a personal best of 65.84 m to win at the Sydney Track Classic in February.^[5] She gave a consistent series of throws at the 2010 Australian Championships and won her sixth consecutive national title (indoor and out) with a best throw of 63.31 m.^[6]

On 21 September 2010 Samuels withdrew from the Australian team for the 2010 Commonwealth Games. She cited concerns over “health and security in Delhi”.^[7]

Personal bests

• All information taken from IAAF profile.

Achievements

Representing  Australia
2005	World Youth Championships	Marrakech, Morocco	3rd	Shot put	15.53 m
			1st	Discus	54.09 m
2006	Commonwealth Games	Melbourne, Australia	12th	Shot put	14.91 m
			3rd	Discus	59.44 m
	World Junior Championships	Beijing, China	7th	Shot put	15.71 m
			1st	Discus	60.63 m
	World Cup	Athens, Greece	6th	Discus
2007	Universiade	Bangkok, Thailand	2nd	Discus	60.47 m
	World Championships	Osaka, Japan	13th	Discus	60.44 m
2008	Olympic Games	Beijing, China	9th	Discus	60.15 m
2009	Universiade	Belgrade, Serbia	1st	Discus	62.48 m
	World Championships	Berlin, Germany	1st	Discus	65.44 m
2011	World Championships	Daegu, South Korea	10th	Discus	59.14 m
2012	Olympic Games	London, United Kingdom	12th	Discus	60.40 m
2013	World Championships	Moscow, Russia	10th	Discus	62.42 m

References

• Dani Samuels profile at IAAF
• Dani Samuels - In a Spin. Inside Athletics (September, 2009 edition). . Retrieved 7 October 2009.