Spyridon Jullien holds the Virginia Tech record in the hammer throw at 228 feet, 4 inches, the winning throw at the Big East outdoor championships last month.
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Jullien competes for Hokies at NCAA championships
Greek thrower gains lofty status
The hammer throw has brought Spyridon Jullien to America, and he has cleared many obstacles on the way to the national meet.
June 9, 2003
By MARK BERMAN
THE ROANOKE TIMES
BLACKSBURG -- The hammer throw may be Greek to you, but Virginia Tech's Spyridon Jullien has become a master of it.
Jullien, a 21-year-old freshman from Athens, Greece, will compete in the event this week at the NCAA outdoor track and field championships in Sacramento, Calif.
In Greece, sports are played not scholastically but in a club system. After giving Greco-Roman wrestling and fencing a try, Jullien joined his sports club's track and field squad as a teenager and began throwing the javelin, discus and shot put. Once he saw someone practicing the hammer throw, he was captivated.
"I said, 'That's it.' It was beautiful. I was charmed," Jullien said.
So charmed that he soon had to give up the violin after eight years of lessons.
"My arms became too stiff and big and my hands really full of calluses, and I couldn't play violin anymore," said Jullien, who is 6-foot-1 and weighs 250 pounds. "I stopped the violin because of the hammer."
In the hammer throw, Jullien -- whose first name is pronounced SPEAR-i-don -- launches a 16-pound ball attached to a 39-inch wire with a handle at the end of it. He swings it around his head twice then, as he hangs on to the handle with his arms fully extended in front of him, spins around four times and throws it. He must stay inside a circle that is 7 feet in diameter, or he will foul.
"It's not mainly physical, as the shot put is," Jullien said. "It's like someone dancing on the circle, you know what I mean? It's connected and smooth. . . . You have to be really mentally able to comprehend the technique. It's really complicated. . . . It has a lot of aspects on it, like technique, speed, acceleration, everything -- balance, coordination."
In 2000, Jullien won the Greek junior championships for 18- and 19-year-olds and took third at the Balkan championships. He won the Greek under-23 championships last year.
Former Tech men's track and field coach Russ Whitenack and the school's other men's and women's track and cross country head coaches preferred to give scholarships to American athletes, but they were replaced in 2001 by Dave Cianelli, who was hired as director of the entire program. Cianelli wanted to boost the program with some foreign recruits.
The hammer throw was a good place to start because it isn't a high school event in most states in America. Whereas Jullien started at 14, former Hokies standout Erick Kingston didn't learn the hammer throw until he got to Tech.
In the fall of 2001, new Tech throws coach Greg Jack saw a posting from Jullien on a hammer throw Web site and recognized his name from a list of the top under-23 throwers in the world. The posting on the message board had Jullien's e-mail address, so Jack sent him an e-mail and asked if he wanted to join the Hokies.
Jullien was then a freshman at a college in northern Greece, unhappy because he was 12 hours away from his club coach in Athens. He had never heard of Tech, but he soon accepted a full scholarship offer.
The NCAA didn't recognize the SAT he took as part of the Tech admissions process because he was already in college in Greece at the time; the NCAA classified him as a nonqualifier and took away a year of eligibility.
Jullien, who was classified as a freshman academically by Tech, felt alone when he got to Blacksburg last August. He missed his family and friends.
"People in Greece are more warm, more personable," he said. "They're more practical here but less sentimental."
Jullien missed Greek food and especially the Greek climate. He still hasn't adjusted to the Blacksburg weather.
"The weather is much worse than Greece -- much, much worse," he said. "I was really frustrated when I saw three months of snow here. The cold was lasting until spring. In Athens it might snow for a couple days, that's all. Now it's June and it's raining."
It wasn't until December that Jullien was given the green light to compete this year. Tech had to wait for Greek documents and translations of documents before it could declare him eligible under NCAA rules.
Jullien competed in the 35-pound weight throw in the indoor season. He set the school and league records with a winning throw of 71 feet, 3 inches at the Big East indoor championships in February. He took 16th at the NCAA indoor championships.
At the Big East outdoor championships last month, Jullien won the hammer throw with a school-record throw of 228-4. That throw ranks him fourth in the 27-man field for the NCAA outdoor meet. He is one of three Europeans ranked among the top four. Jullien is the only freshman ranked among the top eight.
Jack said Jullien's experience in the event is only one reason for his success.
"He's very detail-oriented in terms of his technique, and that's what gets it done," Jack said.
Jullien earned an automatic berth in the NCAA meet with his third-place throw of 214-8 at the NCAA East Regional championships last month. He will throw in the national meet Wednesday in hopes of advancing to the finals Friday.
Jullien will be one of two Hokies at the NCAA meet. Jacobus Smit, a freshman from South Africa, was added to the javelin field last week after one of the entrants scratched.
Jullien has improved his throw by 16 feet since leaving Greece. He hit the weight room at Tech and has gained 23 pounds. He also has benefited from more practice and coaching than he got in Greece.
Jullien is looking forward to returning to Greece for the summer, but he is glad he left home.
"It was a really good move," he said. "I'm much better in my sport right now."
