Liam Christensen will be the sole representative for Team USA in the javelin at the World Youth Championships, taking place on July 15-19 in Cali, Colombia. The rising junior from Academic Magnet High School in North Charleston, South Carolina earned gold at last year’s USATF Junior Olympic Outdoor Championships and was selected for this year’s World Youth Championships after heaving a personal best throw of 224’ 4” at World Youth Trials on June 30. The throw was 24’ further than the second place finisher and places Christensen second on the high school national list. The next best throw from a rising junior is 38^th on the list. We caught up with the javelin phenom, who is currently training with his World Youth Championship teammates in Lisle, Illinois before heading out to Cali.

What are you most confident about heading into the World Youth Championships?

Really right now I’d say that I’m pretty confident with my technique. That’s basically all that we work on when I practice.  We practice a little bit in the weight room, but the best practice that you can get is from just throwing the javelin and that’s what we do.

What areas do you feel you have room for growth as a javelin thrower?

I think I could get generally stronger and become a better athlete. I want to do things like run more and do more core work, really get my body in the shape that it needs to be in (Liam has run five 800m races this season with a personal best of 2:08.9).

What do you hope to take away from the competition in Cali?

I’m really excited to see all of the great athletes. There are incredible people competing in this meet and I want to learn some things from them and take some stuff back with me on how to throw better and better train myself.

What are you most excited about?

This is my first international competition, so I think it’s just getting the experience on a bigger stage. New Balance Nationals is pretty big, but this is in an Olympic-like stadium with quite a few people, and generally more intense competition.  I think it’ll be good to have that experience under my belt.

How does it feel to have accomplished so much before your junior year of high school?

It’s pretty cool. A year ago I was thinking ‘oh wow it would be cool to be on the World Youth Team,’ but I just didn’t know if that was going to happen or not. Once World Youth Trials came around I was like ‘hey dad lets go and see what happens.’

What’s the dynamic like between you and the other Team USA athletes?

We all have our own personality types, but it’s kind of cool because from day one we all just clicked. Everyone’s hanging out all the time and working out together. There’s been some funny times while we’ve hung out, but there’s also more serious times when nobody wants to hear a joke like during an ab workout.

How cool was it to receive all of your Team USA gear?

It’s really nice. The luggage bag is really cool and I like all of the shirts, jackets and competition uniforms. I’m really thankful for that because I never had a USA kit and didn’t know what would be in it, so it was a nice surprise to get all of that.

How do you see your future in the sport?

In a perfect world I would just keep training as hard as I could in high school and then get into a good college, though I don’t have a college in mind yet. If I’m good enough, I’d like to throw in the Diamond League and travel around Europe. If I don’t that’s ok, but that would be pretty nice if it happened.

Photo by Brian Fancher