Men's hammer throw final in Zagreb Grand Prix preview
With the Diamond League circuit at the IAAF Grand Prix in Zagreb complete the only event left to be decided is the hammer throw. Instead of being a part of the regular Diamond League meets, the IAAF instead decided to present the Hammer Throw Challenge series. The main reason behind this move was that many of the sites for Diamond League meets do not have the infrastructure in place to hold the hammer throw. Wednesday in Zagreb will see the men’s final. The women’s final was completed 29 August.
The Hammer Throw Challenge has been held in a number of places that will host larger events in the future including Rio de Janiero, host of the 2016 Summer Games, and Osaka Japan, host of the 2011 World Championships. They’ve also been able to hold the event in former world stages including the host city of the 2004 Summer Games, Athens, and Berlin which hosted the 2009 World Championships.
The Challenge consists of 11 total meetings. Men and women each have seven events.
The final competition for the women took place in Rieti, Italy with Tatyana Lysenko of Russia winning the event with a throw of 74.80, but it was Betty Heidler of Germany that won the Challenge hitting marks of 75.28 in Daegu, 75.25 in Ostrava, and 75.35 in Berlin. She finished with a total score of 225.88 while Anita Wlodarczyk of Poland took a close second with a score of 225.30. Lysenko finished in third with 221.53 points. There were 32 competitors over the course of the season.
Currently leading the standings on the men’s side with 236.02 points is Dilshod Nazarov of Tadjikistan who took top spot in Osaka, Rio de Janeiro, and Madrid. His longest throw of the Hammer Throw Challenge this season to date is 78.84. Close behind him is Krisztian Pars of Hungary, who beat Nazarov in Ostrava with a throw of 79.15. Pars currently has 234.52 points. Rounding out the top three is Sergej Litvinov of Germany, winner of the Hammer Challenge in Hengelo with a throw of 78.98, he currently has 233.62 points.
These three will compete to win the overall Challenge, but they will all find it difficult to win in Zagreb with the return of Koji Murofushi of Japan. Murfushi competed in Osaka in May, but then removed himself from competition until his return last week in Rieti when he threw a season-best 80.96.
Murofushi, winner of the gold medal in the hammer throw in the 2004 Olympics in Athens, is unable to win the 2010 Challenge, but he will be looking to win the meet in preparation for future events. He’ll go up against the three Challenge standings leaders as well as European champion, Libor Charfreitag of Slovenia, who was able to make a throw of over 80 metres this season.
The current world record in the hammer throw is 86.74, set in 1986 by Yuriy Sedykh of the country then known as the Soviet Union. Unless there's some kind of unheard-of form displayed by one of the challengers in Zagreb, it's not expected that it will be broken.
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