We chat to the 2026 UK champion who believes there is much more to come after breaking the 80m barrier.

Javelin thrower Ben East has improved by three metres this year and has joined the 80m club in his event. He feels he has potential to throw much further, too.

“I still don’t think I’ve hit the perfect throw this year,” he says. “I’ve become much more physically robust over the winter and made big technical improvements, but there are still some big things I’m not quite getting right.”

The 22-year-old has surrounded himself with a great team based in Loughborough that includes training partner and Paralympic champion Dan Pembroke and technical coach John Trower, the man who guided Steve Backley to four European titles and three Olympic medals. Backley himself also offers advice from time to time.

It is clearly working for East. Hiis annual progression from 2021 to 2026 has gone: 61.62m, 73.49m, 74.03m, 75.85m, 77.40m, 80.49m. Last year’s best throw of 77.40m saw him win silver in the UK Championships behind Michael Allison, but this summer he took gold.

His 80.49m throw, meanwhile, came in Nice, where he finished ahead of two-time world champion Anderson Peters of Grenada and 2016 Olympic champion Thomas Röhler of Germany.

On his big improvements, he says: “In javelin, once you line something up, [the distance] doesn’t move half a centimetre – it jumps. When it goes, it really goes. If you’ve built a more robust physical model, you’re in better shape, you can use more force and you’re getting some key technical things right, the javelin will go further – even if it’s not spot‑on yet. That’s the exciting part: when you do finally get everything right, it will really fly.”

It’s a puzzle he is hoping to solve with the help of his training set-up.

“We have incredible technical coaching and great strength and conditioning support,” he says. “It’s made this winter not just more effective, but more fun. John has about as much knowledge of what creates performance in javelin as you could hope for. His input is invaluable – both in how we programme the work around the technical sessions and in the technical sessions themselves.

“Coaching is very personal. The way John coaches and the way I like to work in sessions just has great chemistry. For me it’s an ideal set‑up.”

Modern throwers have access to more advanced technology and video analysis than ever before. East says it helps but adds: “It’s also easy to get bogged down in, thinking: ‘My release angle is three degrees off,’ instead of just looking at where the javelin’s going.

“Technology has its place and can be really valuable, but at the end of the day you’ve still just got to run in, hit the position and throw it where you’re looking.”

Crucially, East has avoided serious injury, too. “Javelin is a brutal event,” he says. “The forces going through your body at the plant are ridiculous and if that force goes to the wrong place it can break you very quickly.”

He feels he is not alone in his quest to reach the top of the sport. “British javelin as a whole is getting pretty special. There are a lot of young guys coming through and I think over the next few years you’re going to see quite a few of us throwing really far and hopefully challenging at major championships.”

If you could train with any athlete, past or present, who would it be and why?

“If I had to pick a hero I watched growing up, it would probably be Thomas Röhler. Guys like Steve Backley and Jan Zelezny were a bit before my time, but Röhler was the one I was watching growing up – Olympic champion, incredible technician – and I feel there are quite a few similarities between his model and mine. I competed against him in Nice recently. Javelin is quite a tight‑knit community – you end up sharing ideas and you’re generally good friends with each other.”