Valerie Adams is a shot putter from New Zealand. She is known as “New Zealand’s Golden Girl,” and she has won four World championships. She is one of only nine athletes to win the World championships at the youth, junior, and senior levels of an athletic event. She is also proud to have won two gold medals at the Olympics and three Commonwealth titles. She was tall, strong, and well-built from a young age, and she played sports when she was in school. With the help of her school’s Physical Education teacher, she broke records at the regional junior athletics day when she was only 13 years old. She wanted to become a famous athlete, so she trained hard to get ready for her future career. As a young teen, she met Kirsten Hellier, a former javelin thrower, who became her coach for the next 11 years. During that time, Hellier helped the girl improve her technique and led her to her first big win at the 2001 World Youth Championships. From there, Valerie’s life kept getting better and better. Along the way, she won several gold and silver medals. She has done great things as an athlete, making her country proud. In 2014, she was the first Kiwi to be named the World Athlete of the Year in Monaco.
Early years and childhood
She was born in Rotorua, New Zealand, on October 6, 1984. Her mother, Lillika Ngauamo, is from Tonga, and her father, Sydney Adams, is from England. Her father used to be in the Royal Navy. After he got out, he moved to New Zealand. Her father had been with many different women and had 18 children five of them.
Three of her brothers also went on to play sports professionally, and one of them, Steven Adams, is an NBA basketball player.
She was tall and had strong arms. She also took part in sports at her school. One of her PE teachers saw how good she was at sports and encouraged her to keep doing them.
In 1998, she met Kirsten Hellier, who used to be a javelin thrower. Hellier agreed to coach the teen.
When the girl’s mother got cancer, it was a terrible thing. Valerie dropped out of school for three months to help care for her sick mother in the hospice. In the year 2000, Valerie and her mother were watching the Sydney Olympic Games together. This made Valerie want to be a great athlete. Her mother passed away soon after.
Valerie Adams’s Career
She started competing in sports, and her first big win came in 2001 when she won the World Youth Championships with a throw of 16.87 m. In less than a year, she became known as a rising sports star when she won the World Junior Championship by throwing 17.73 m.
She took part in the Commonwealth Games in 2002, where she won a silver medal for a throw of 17.45 m. This made her want to do even better in future events. She also went to the World Championships in 2003, when she was 18. There, she came in fifth.
In 2004, she was looking forward to her first Olympics, but she had to have an appendectomy just a few weeks before the games. Still, she went and came in seventh.
She came in second at the 2005 World Athletics Final. Nadzeya Ostapchuk won the gold medal. Later, Ostapchuk’s sample from that event was retested and found to be positive for drugs. Because of this, her results were thrown out and Valarie was given the gold medal.
In 2006, she had a great year because she won the gold medal at the Commonwealth Games and broke the 20-year-old record of 19.00 meters by throwing 19.66 meters.
In 2008, she threw 20.19 m to win her first World Indoor Title in Valencia. She also made it to the final of the Beijing Olympics with a throw of 19.73 m on her first try. She went on to win her first Olympic gold medal with a throw of 20.56 m, which was a personal best.
In 2009, she won the World Athletics Championship in Berlin with a throw of 20.44m, beating German Nadine Kleinert and Chinese Lijiao Gong.
Kirsten Hellier had been her coach since 1998. She decided to break up with him, and in April 2010, she hired Didier Poppe as her new coach. But this partnership didn’t last long, and in late 2010, Jean-Pierre Egger took over as her coach.
She got the silver medal at the 2012 Olympics in London. Nadzeya Ostapchuk won the gold medal. But Ostapchuk failed two drug tests, so her results were thrown out and Valerie was named the winner of the gold medal.
At the 2013 World Championships in Moscow, she won her fourth gold medal, passing Astrid Kumbernuss as the woman with the most gold medals in shot put. She won gold at the 2014 Commonwealth Games, where she also carried the flag for New Zealand.
Her Awards & Achievements
From 2006 to 2012, seven years in a row, she was named New Zealand’s Sportswoman of the Year.
She got the Halberg Supreme Award in 2007, 2008, and 2009 for all of the amazing things she had done in sports.
In 2012 and 2013, the magazine “Track & Field News” named her the Women’s Track & Field Athlete of the Year.
Personal History and Legacies
In 2004, she got married to Bertrand Vili, a New Caledonian who threw the discus. But after a few years, the marriage ran into trouble, and the couple split up in 2010.
Estimated Net worth
Valerie Adams is one of the wealthiest and most well-known Shot putters. Based on what we found on Wikipedia, Forbes, and Business Insider, Valerie Adams has a net worth of about $1.5 million.