Johannes Vetter surpassed the 90 metre-line for the fourth successive competition at the Anhalt 2021 in Dessau on Friday (21) evening, a World Athletics Continental Tour Bronze meeting.
Just two nights after extending his world lead to 94.20m in Ostrava, Vetter came within exactly one metre of this mark in cool conditions at the Paul Greifzu Stadium.
Vetter opened his series with a highly respectable 87.67m but unlike in recent competitions where the German would produce his best effort on the first attempt, the 2017 world champion improved significantly with his next two efforts.
Vetter handsomely surpassed the 90 metre-line again on his second attempt with 91.86m to surpass the long-standing meeting record of 90.11m held by Russia’s Sergey Makarov since 2003 before adding even more distance to his lead on his third attempt which speared the turf at 93.20m.
Aside from Vetter himself, only his teammate Thomas Rohler - who was a late withdrawal due to a small injury - and world record-holder Jan Zelezny have ever thrown further with the current specification javelin.
Vetter mistimed his fourth round effort which still landed at 88.09m - a distance which nobody else has surpassed in 2021 - before passing his last two attempts.
His next competition will be the European Athletics Team Championships Super League in Silesia on 29-30 May where Vetter set his national record of 97.76m last year.
“I actually didn’t expect to throw this far again today – 93.20m is quite something, especially since my last competition was just 48 hours ago. So yes, I’m really happy with the result," said Vetter.
He added: "It was a pretty solid series overall, but as a precaution I decided to pass on the last two attempts. Not necessarily to preserve energy, I think I’ve shown that I’ve got enough of that at the moment with that 93-metre throw, but I didn’t want to take any risk."
Behind Vetter, Julian Weber fired a season’s best of 84.51m with Andrian Mardare from Moldova third with 82.99m.
The much anticipated head-to-head between Mariya Lasitskene and Yaroslava Mahuchikh didn’t quite materialise in the women’s high jump.
Competing internationally for the first time since winning her third world title in Doha, Lasitskene cleared 1.80m before failing three times at her next height of 1.87m and could only finish seventh.
Mahuchikh scaled the winning height of 1.92m but the European indoor champion only went clear on her third attempt. Her compatriot Iryna Herashchenko, the European indoor silver medallist, cleared the same height on her first attempt to claim victory on countback.
Reigning European and world long jump champion Malaika Mihambo also delivered a victory on home soil in front of a crowd of 500 spectators who were allowed admission.
Mihambo produced her best mark of 6.68m in the second round to defeat Nastassia Mironchyk-Ivanova’s best effort of 6.51m.
Full results here.