Anita Wlodarczyk’s quest to win a third successive Olympic title in the hammer remains alive after the world record-holder produced her longest throw in three seasons on home soil at the Irena Szewinska Memorial in Bydgoszcz, a World Athletics Continental Tour Gold meeting, on Wednesday (30) evening.
Wlodarczyk has struggled to rekindle her best form on her return to competition after knee surgery but the Pole produced by far her best series since her 2018 season which was capped by a fourth successive European title in Berlin.
All six of Wlodarczyk’s throws were comfortably beyond her previous season’s best of 74.06m with her best throw in the second round hitting the turf beyond the 75 metre-line at 77.93m. This throw elevates Wlodarczyk to third on the 2021 world list behind the US duo of world champion DeAnna Price (80.31m) and Brooke Andersen (78.18m).
“In Poznań [at the Polish Championships] I already said that I was ready for 77-78 metres. I did not have to wait a long time. I am glad that I did it in Bydgoszcz, because I have very fond memories of this stadium,” Wlodarczyk told the Polish press after the competition.
Wlodarczyk fell just short of her stadium record of 78.30m which dates back to 2010 in terms of antiquity and was a world record at the time. And even though Wlodarczyk has thrown further than 77.96m in countless competitions, only four other women have surpassed that mark in history.
Polish champion Malwina Kopron had beaten Wlodarczyk in all of their prior clashes this season but the former world bronze medallist had to settle for second on this occasion with 75.41m with European silver medallist Alexandra Tavernier from France third with 73.87m.
Four-time world champion Pawel Fajdek came within a matter of centimetres of his world lead of 82.98m in the men’s hammer for the second time in the space of a week.
Five days after winning the Polish title in Poznan with 82.82m, Fajdek produced a near identical distance of 82.77m in the third round for another victory ahead of his domestic rival and European champion Wojciech Nowicki who threw 80.00m.
Fajdek’s winning mark also displaced the stadium record of 82.30m set by 2008 Olympic champion Primoz Kozmus from Slovenia in 2007.
With the Tallinn 2021 European Athletics U23 Championships only eight days away, Ukraine’s Myhaylo Kokhan approached ever closer to the 80 metre-line with a lifetime best of 79.96m in the second round.
At 20, Kokhan is an immensely strong candidate to win the U23 title having triumphed at U18 level in 2018 and at U20 level the following year on the continental stage.
But the most outstanding performance of the evening came from Namibia’s 18-year-old Christine Mboma who decimated her world U20 400m record with 48.54 to climb to seventh on the world all-time list.
Reigning European champion Justyna Swiety-Ersetic was a distant second in 51.91.
Full results here.