ZAGREB, Aug. 28 (Xinhua) -- Double world and Olympic champion, 27-year-old Croatian discus thrower Sandra Perkovic said here on Monday that she is against the proposition of European Athletics Federation to abolish all the records set before 2005.
The European Athletics Federation made a radical proposal to the sport's world governing body earlier this year that all world records set before 2005 should be examined and could be rewritten after doping scandals.
But Perkovic would rather let the records stay the way they are.
"If that would be easy, everyone would reach those distances. I think 76.80 meters should stay. Only the strongest ones can go past that distance," Perkovic said ahead of the annual IAAF World Challenge that will take place on Tuesday in Croatian capital Zagreb.
The event features 10 present and nine former olympic and world champions across 15 disciplines on the program.
Even though Perkovic is the only medalist from the recent World Championship in London on the start list that also lacks three Chinese finalist Su Xinyue, Feng Bin and Chen Yang, she will have a strong opposition in Germany's duo of Nadine Mueller and Julia Harting, and two Americans experienced Gia Lewis-Smallwood and Whitney Ashley. However, dubbed as "Discus Queen" in her homeland, Perkovic has been a dominant force in the discipline for the last seven years, winning almost every competition that she has entered.
She is also the one of only two throwers, along with Cuba's Denia Caballero, that managed to get over the 70 meters mark in the past 25 years. Her personal best and Croatian record stands at 71.41 meters that she threw in July at the small international meeting in Bellinzona. However outstanding that performance was, Perkovic was still more than 5 meters shy of the world record mark set by Gabriele Reinsch in July, 1988.
If the proposal presented to the European Athletics Federation that record would become just the number from the past would get the approval, Sandra Perkovic would become the frontrunner to set the new world record mark. However, she doesn't want that kind of help and believes that the current world record isn't unreachable.
"I believe that I can break that record. If I won't do it maybe someone else will," Perkovic added.
The goal she set for the event in Zagreb is a little smaller. With 69.88 meters reached in 2015, Perkovic is a record holder at Zagreb Meeting, but she is yet to throw the discus beyond the 70 meters mark in her hometown.
