Slovenia’s 2008 Olympic champion Primoz Kozmus came out on top of the latest round of the men’s IAAF Hammer Throw Challenge, held in conjunction with the Karlstad Grand Prix in Sweden, throwing 77.69m on Tuesday (23).

Kozmus, who also won the 2009 World title and took the silver medal last summer at the London 2012 Olympic Games, won by more than a metre from Slovakia’s Marcel Lomnicky, who was second with 76.66m.

Oleksiy Sokyrskyy took an early lead with 75.86m in the opening round and although the Ukrainian improved to 76.35m in the next round, which was to suffice for third place, Kozmus took control of the contest with his second throw, sending it out to 77.44m.

He improved further to 77.69m in the third round and finished off with a foul and two throws over 76 metres.

Lomnicky was lying third going into the last round but produced his best throw with his last effort to leapfrog Sokyrskyy into second place.

Kozmus has only thrown in two Challenge meetings this year and so currently lies down in ninth place, with Hungary’s Olympic champion Krisztian Pars leading the way in the men’s contest with an overall total 242.50m.

The next Challenge meeting, for both men and women, will be the IAAF World Championships. There are four more meetings after Moscow during August and September at which athletes can improve their position in the standings.

In other events, the highlights included Sweden’s newly-crowned World youth 200m champion Irene Ekelund, who sprinted to a 23.27 win over her compatriot Moa Hjelmer, who was second in 23.54.

In the Long Jump, Erica Jarder jumped close to her best with a meeting record of 6.58m.

Kenya’s Cornelius Kangogo won the 3000m in another meeting record of 7:49.98, just holding off Djibouti’s Hiss Bachir Youssouf, who was second in a personal best of 7:50.96 while Estonia’s Tiindrek Nurme was third in 7:51.49, which was also a personal best.

Estonia’s Risto Matas threw the javelin out 81.36m to beat the home favourite Kim Amb, who could only manage 79.79m. Eritrea’s Meraf Bahta took the women’s 1500m win in 4:12.63.

There were sprint hurdles wins for Norway’s Isabelle Pedersen in 13.41 and Spain’s Franciso Javier Lopez in 13.78.

A correspondent for the IAAF

Aleksey SOKIRSKIY

Aleksey SOKIRSKIY