Kenyan javelin thrower Julius Yego learned his craft on YouTube, and now he’s a World Champion
James Dator has been covering a wide range of sports for SB Nation for over a decade, with a special focus on the NFL.
One of the best things about the lead up to any Olympic Games is learning about the amazing athletes who don’t get everyday press because they compete in sports that are often out of the spotlight. Kenyan javelin thrower Julius Yego certainly isn’t a rookie athlete, but his story is absolutely amazing -- and finally we heard it in totality.
GoPro produced a short documentary on Yego’s journey from a small village to the Olympic games. From a young age he felt like the sport of javelin was in his blood, but access to training or even javelins was difficult for him to attain. It was a low point in his life. Yego knew he loved javelin. He desperately wanted to compete, but had no means of having the resources to achieve his goal. This meant that practice for Yego involved sharpened wooden sticks, determination and YouTube.
The lack of training available for Yego meant that the best he could do was watch the world’s greatest javelin throwers compete in YouTube videos. Every day he went to an Internet cafe to intently study everything they did -- each step, every motion and made it his mission to emulate them. It worked.
Training took a turn. Suddenly his throws became longer. People around Yego wanted to follow him, and suddenly he had partners to keep him motivated and on track. In 2010 he won bronze at the African Championship, then gold in 2012. Two years later he won gold at the Commonwealth Games and in 2015 he became the World Champion in javelin.
Julius Yego’s story isn’t just about one man conquering the world in his sport, but beating himself when everything in his mind told him to quit. It’s the kind of inspirational story that makes us all want to be a little better, try a little harder and never see something as impossible. Please, take seven minutes out of your day to watch this.
