Dame Valerie Adams' drought-breaking gold in Beijing among memorable moments

OPINION: Shot putterValerie Adams’ lengthy list of achievements is beyond impressive.

Along with her Olympic heroics, one of New Zealand’s greatest athletes also won four world championship golds, four world indoor crowns, and snared three Commonwealth Games triumphs.

There was also a winning streak of 56 elite competitions between August 2010 and July 2015 for the double Olympic gold medallist.

Indeed, having announced her retirement in Auckland on Tuesday, her career was littered with magical moments.

Here’s five of many.

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Drought breaker

Expectations were sky-high when Adams lined up at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, the year after she was crowned world champion for the first time.

More than three decades had passed since New Zealand’s last track and field Olympic gold medal, won by John Walker in Montreal in 1976, while you had to go back to 1952 (Yvette Williams in the long jump) for the last gold won by a woman.

Adams delivered with a then 20.56m personal best, beating Belarusian Natallia Mikhnevich to claim one of the three gold medals won by Kiwis in China.

Four years later, Adams went on to win her second gold medal, but only after Belarusian Nadzeya Astapchuk was disqualified for doping.

A historic four-peat

Adams’ dominance was never clearer than in 2013, when she became the first woman to win four straight individual world titles.

A year after winning gold at the London Olympics, she collected the last of her four world titles in Moscow with a 20.88m heave.

It went with the world crowns she won in Osaka (2007), Berlin (2009) and Daegu (2011), and marked her 38th consecutive win.

It was in Daegu, South Korea, where Adams achieved her personal best, a 21.24m monster.

When bronze felt like gold

Judging by her celebration, you’d have thought Adams snared gold in Tokyo last year.

She raised her arms aloft, before a grin spread across her face in triumph after claiming bronze, which to her met the gold standard for motherhood.

Competing in her fifth Games, 17 years after her first (Athens), Adams’ fourth Olympic medal meant the world to her after the sacrifices she’d made.

That included moving to Christchurch to work under new coach Dale Stevenson in 2020, ensuring long stints away from her Auckland-based husband Gabriel Price, and their children – daughter Kimoana and son Kepaleli – both born between the Rio and Tokyo Olympics.

“It's been a very long road to get here, it's taken a lot of hard sweat and tears. The body is a bit older than normal, therefore things break down from time to time. But it was an amazing feeling to know our goal of coming to the Olympic Games to win a medal was finally achieved,” she said after receiving her medal.

A standing record

No woman has uncorked a bigger throw at the Commonwealth Games than Adams did in New Delhi in 2010.

Her 20.47m winner, which sealed the second of three Commonwealth Games gold medals won by Adams, stands today as the mark to beat.

It came four years after she grabbed gold at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games with a 19.66m throw, which obliterated the 20-year-old record by a whopping 66cm.

Adams didn’t threaten her record on chilly night at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games in 2014, but did make it three straight gold medals as she notched her 54th successive competition win.

Passing it on

Lisa Adams ran straight to her big sister and wrapped her arms around her in delight.

Coached by the double Olympic champion, she’d just won gold in the women’s F37 shot put at the Paralympics in Tokyo last year.

Four weeks after securing bronze in the Olympics, Valerie had cheered her younger sister on throughout the competition, in which she shattered the Paralympics record with two throws of 15.12m.

The good news for Lisa, who has cerebral palsy, is Valerie plans to continue coaching her, ensuring all that nous won’t go to waste.