Sandra Perkovic against abolishing pre-2005 world records

Zagreb, Aug 29: Double world and Olympic champion, 27-year-old Croatian discus thrower Sandra Perkovic said she is against the proposition of the 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, reports Xinhua news agency.

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 the Croatian capital.

The event features 10 present and nine former Olympic and world champions across 15 disciplines.

Even though Perkovic is the only medallist from the recent World Championship in London on the start list that also lacks Chinese finalists Su Xinyue, Feng Bin and Chen Yang, she will have strong opposition in Germany's duo of Nadine Mueller and Julia Harting, and experienced Americans Gia Lewis-Smallwood and Whitney Ashley.

Called "Discus Queen" in her homeland, Perkovic has been a dominant force in the discipline for the past seven years, winning almost every competition that she has entered.

She is also only one of two throwers, along with Cuba's Denia Caballero, who managed to get over the 70-meter mark in the past 25 years. Her personal best and Croatian record stands at 71.41 meters that she threw in July at a small international meeting in Bellinzona.

However outstanding that performance was, Perkovic was still more than five meters shy of the world record mark set by Gabriele Reinsch in July, 1988.

If the proposal presented to the European Athletics Federation is approved that record would become just a number from the past and 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 the Zagreb Meeting, but she is yet to throw the discus beyond the 70-meter mark in her hometown.