OVERSEAS
HAMMERED HOME
WHILE Sophie Hitchon’s recent successes have given focus to the hammer in the UK, you have to feel sorry for Anita Wlodarczyk. Her Rio world record was outshone by the 10,000m and 400m and her latest mark clashed with Ruth Jebet’s ’chase exploits. She deserves more coverage for her record-breaking.
- Steve Smythe, resuls editor
WLODARCZYK 82.98M WR
OVERSEAS
POLAND
Kamila Skolimowska Memorial, Warsaw, August 28
APPROPRIATELY it was Polish hammer throwers who achieved the notable results at the Kamila Skolimowska Memorial meeting held annually in honour of the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games hammer champion who died suddenly in 2009.
Anita Wlodarczyk bettered her world record set at the Olympic Games with a 82.98m in front of a 27,000 crowd. It was her sixth world record.
She opened with a 79.68m, improving round by round to 80.31m, 81.77m and then the 82.98m in round four.
She said: “Yes, it was close to 83 metres, but let’s save something for next season.”
Olympic bronze medallist Sophie Hitchon had another excellent result to finish second with 72.42m.
Paweł Fajdek bounced back from his surprise Rio failure to win in a world-leading 82.47m and all six of his throws were over 78.50m.
Tomas Walsh was also in good form and won the shot with 21.48m as former Olympic champion Tomasz Majewski showed his best form of 2016 with 21.08m.