Ethan Katzberg in action at the Continental Tour Gold meeting in Nairobi (© Kelly Ayodi)
Olympic champions Ethan Katzberg, Haruka Kitaguchi and Ryan Crouser are among the athletes announced for the Boris Hanzekovic Memorial, the final Gold meeting in this season’s World Athletics Continental Tour, in Zagreb on 6-8 September.
The hammer throw returns to the Boris Hanzekovic Memorial for the first time in 11 years and Katzberg tops the list of entries, fresh off his Olympic title win in Paris.
Canada’s Katzberg threw 84.12m to add the Olympic title to the world gold he claimed in Budapest last year and become, at the age of 22, the youngest men’s world and Olympic hammer champion.
He will surely have his eye on the meeting record of 81.77m, set by 2008 Olympic champion Primoz Kozmus.
The women’s javelin will feature another Olympic and world champion in Kitaguchi. The 26-year-old became the first Japanese woman to win an Olympic medal in a field event when she got gold in Paris, throwing 65.80m.
In Zagreb she will be joined by home stars Sara Kolak, the 2016 Olympic champion who finished fourth in Paris, and Vita Barbic, the European U18 champion.
World record-holder Crouser returns to Zagreb on the hunt for a sixth shot put victory in Croatia’s capital. The Ivan Ivancic Memorial will take place on the eve of the main event, beside the Zagreb fountains, and as well as targeting another win, Crouser will have the chance to attack his own meeting record of 22.84m set in 2021.
He will be joined by his US compatriot Payton Otterdahl, who finished fourth in Paris, plus European champion Leonardo Fabbri and European silver medallist and home favourite Filip Mihaljevic.
Two Olympic medallists feature in the pole vault, as silver medallist and two-time world champion Sam Kendricks renews his rivalry with bronze medallist Emmanouil Karalis.
