Ben Langton Burnell today qualified in ninth place for the final of the men’s javelin.
Though he was well below his best, the 25-year-old New Zealand’s first effort of 75.29 was good enough to book him a spot in tomorrow’s final. He was unable to reach the automatic qualifying mark in his next two throws of 74.29m and 70.87m.
The leading qualifier in the javelin was Hamish Peacock of Australia, with 81.22m.
As a curious sidelight, in the Games biographies, generally provided by the athletes themselves, Langton Burnell is listed as setting a world record distance of 120.65m for throwing a mobile phone, in 2013. The phone was evidently a Nokia N5.