Germany’s Johannes Vetter left it late but came away with victory in the javelin at the Kuortane Games on Saturday (1), a World Athletics Continental Tour Europe Bronze Meeting.
After some huge throws in warm-up, Vetter couldn’t quite replicate this form in the early stages of the competition but the 2017 world champion improved from 81.69m to 84.19m in the fifth round before overhauling Sweden’s Kim Amb with his sixth round throw of 86.94m.
“It was a really good competition for me. I nearly got the win but Vetter is in good shape,” acknowledged Amb who took the lead in the first round with 82.51m before extending his advantage to 85.68m in the fourth round.
Not only did Vetter overtake Amb in the sixth round, the German also surpassed the Swede's European-leading mark of 86.49m from Zweibrucken last week. On that occasion Vetter retired from the competition without a valid effort to his name due to a problematic elbow.
As expected there was a Swedish one-two in the discus with reigning world champion Daniel Stahl defeating training partner Simon Pettersson - 68.48m to 66.11m - in largely still conditions.
“It was really nice to come and throw in Kuortane. 68 meters in windless weather is fine. It was great that Simon threw 66 metres; this made for a good competition,” said Stahl.
Stahl will face ever greater opposition when he returns to Finland later this month for the Paavo Nurmi Games in Turku. The reigning world champion is slated to face European champion Andrius Gudzius from Lithuania as well as the in-form Kristjan Ceh from Slovenia, who recently broke the European U23 record with 68.75m.
Competing for the first time since a brief indoor season, Great Britain’s Holly Bradshaw made an excellent outdoor debut. The European bronze medallist cleared 4.73m on her second attempt before three attempts at an outdoor lifetime best of 4.82m. Her teammate Sophie Cook was second with 4.40m.
Latvia’s Lina Muze defeated European silver medallist Nikola Ogrodnikova from the Czech Republic in the women’s javelin - 62.75m to 60.61m - while Annimari Korte highlighted the track action by winning the 100m hurdles in 12.88 from teammate Nooralotta Neziri in 12.96.
Full results here.