Thursday, August 21, 2008 - 4:21 PM

Australian athlete Jarrod Bannister has qualified for Saturday's Olympic final of the men's javelin in Beijing.

Bannister managed a throw of 79.79 metres to squeeze through to the 12-man final in 11th spot.

Latvia's Vadims Vasilevskis recorded the best throw of 83.51 metres.

The preliminaries had to be postponed after the day begin with torrential rain inside the Bird's Nest.

The event did get underway eventually after the rain eased.