Dani Samuels, Australian discus thrower
Dani Stevens (née Samuels, born 26 May 1988) is an Australian discus thrower who in 2009 became the youngest ever female world champion in the event. She is the current national and Oceanian record holder. Stevens qualified for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and threw 58.77m in the Women's dicus throw. Unfortunately, this was not a sufficient distance to qualify her for the final.After winning the discus gold and shot put bronze medals at the 2005 World Youth Championships in Athletics, she went on to win the bronze medal in the discus at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne at the age of seventeen. She won the discus silver at the 2007 Summer Universiade and represented Australia at her first World Championships in Athletics soon after. She reached the final of the 2008 Beijing Olympics and improved significantly the following year to win the gold medal at the 2009 World Championships in Athletics.
Samuels is one of only nine athletes (along with Valerie Adams, Usain Bolt, Veronica Campbell-Brown, Jacques Freitag, Yelena Isinbayeva, Kirani James, Jana Pittman, and David Storl) to win world championships at the youth, junior, and senior level of an athletic event. Her personal best throws are 69.64 m for the discus and 17.05 metres in the shot put.
Samuels has also spent many winters playing basketball in the Waratah League alongside her sister, Jamie, who has played in the Women's National Basketball League.
1988May, 26
Dani Samuels
Choose Another Date
Events on 1988
- 14Apr
Soviet Union
In a United Nations ceremony in Geneva, Switzerland, the Soviet Union signs an agreement pledging to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan. - 29May
Ronald Reagan
The U.S. President Ronald Reagan begins his first visit to the Soviet Union when he arrives in Moscow for a superpower summit with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. - 15Nov
State of Palestine
Israeli-Palestinian conflict: An independent State of Palestine is proclaimed by the Palestinian National Council. - 16Nov
Benazir Bhutto
In the first open election in more than a decade, voters in Pakistan elect populist candidate Benazir Bhutto to be Prime Minister of Pakistan. - 19Nov
Slobodan Milošević
Serbian communist representative and future Serbian and Yugoslav president Slobodan Milošević publicly declares that Serbia is under attack from Albanian separatists in Kosovo as well as internal treachery within Yugoslavia and a foreign conspiracy to destroy Serbia and Yugoslavia.