2017 World Championships in Athletics – Women's javelin throw

Olympic gold medalist Sara Kolak's second throw took the lead at 64.95 metres. Her lead lasted only two throws before world record holder, at age 36, Barbora Špotáková threw 66.76 m (219 ft 0 in), which turned out to be the winner. These were two of six throwers who achieved their best distance in the second round. Li Lingwei's personal best 66.25 metres near the end of the third round put her in second place. After improving her own Asian record by almost a metre and a half to 67.59 m (221 ft 9 in), to move to #11 of all time, in her only throw of the qualifying round, Lü Huihui barely qualified into the final round in seventh place. With the benefit of those three extra throws, Lü threw a 65.26m in the fifth round to take the bronze medal from Kolak. She was the only competitor to improve her position in the final three throws.

Before the competition records were as follows:[2]

Record	Dist.	Athlete	Nat.	Date	Location
World	72.28	Barbora Špotáková	CZE	13 Sep 2008	Stuttgart, Germany
Championship	71.99	Maria Abakumova	RUS	2 Sep 2011	Daegu, South Korea
World leading	68.43	Sara Kolak	CRO	6 Jul 2017	Lausanne, Switzerland
African	69.35	Sunette Viljoen	RSA	9 Jun 2012	New York City, United States
Asian	66.13	Lü Huihui	CHN	30 Aug 2015	Beijing, China
NACAC	71.70	Olisdeilys Menéndez	CUB	14 Aug 2005	Helsinki, Finland
South American	63.84	Flor Ruiz	COL	25 Jun 2016	Cali, Colombia
European	72.28	Barbora Špotáková	CZE	13 Sep 2008	Stuttgart, Germany
Oceanian	66.83	Kimberley Mickle	AUS	22 Mar 2014	Melbourne, Australia

The following records were set at the competition:[3]

Record	Dist.	Athlete	Nat.	Date
Asian	67.59	Lü Huihui	CHN	6 Aug 2017
Chinese

The standard to qualify automatically for entry was 61.40 metres.[4]

The event schedule, in local time (UTC+1), was as follows:[5]