<h2>Men's hammer</h2>
<a href="https://www.worldathletics.org/competitions/olympic-games/the-xxxii-olympic-games-athletics-7132391/athletes?competitionGroup=olympic-games&amp;countryCode=&amp;disciplineCode=HT&amp;sexCode=M&amp;urlSlug=the-xxxii-olympic-games-athletics-7132391" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Entries</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.worldathletics.org/competitions/olympic-games/the-xxxii-olympic-games-athletics-7132391/timetable/bydiscipline/men/hammer-throw" target="_blank" rel="noopener">timetable</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.worldathletics.org/world-rankings/hammer-throw/men?regionType=world&amp;page=1&amp;rankDate=2021-07-13&amp;limitByCountry=0" target="_blank" rel="noopener">world rankings</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.worldathletics.org/records/toplists/throws/hammer-throw/outdoor/men/senior/2021?regionType=world&amp;page=1&amp;bestResultsOnly=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2021 world list</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.worldathletics.org/records/all-time-toplists/throws/hammer-throw/outdoor/men/senior?regionType=world&amp;page=1&amp;bestResultsOnly=true&amp;firstDay=1900-01-01&amp;lastDay=2021-07-19" target="_blank" rel="noopener">world all-time list</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.worldathletics.org/disciplines/throws/hammer-throw" target="_blank" rel="noopener">how it works</a>
Could this finally be Pawel Fajdek&rsquo;s moment?
The Pole has been the best performer in the men&rsquo;s hammer over the past decade, during which time he has won four world titles and produced 62 80-metre throws. But when it comes to the Olympic Games, Fajdek hasn&rsquo;t had the best of luck.
He headed to London in 2012 as the third-best thrower in the world, but didn&rsquo;t record a valid throw in the qualifying round. In Rio four years later, he struggled in qualifying once more and registered a best of just 72.00m, which wasn&rsquo;t enough to advance.
If he can conquer those demons in Tokyo, he will be among the favourites for gold.
Although his lifetime best of 83.93m, a Polish record, was set back in 2015, the 32-year-old continues to churn out big throws and has bettered 82 metres four times this year, topped by his world-leading 82.98m in May.
His 2021 record isn&rsquo;t without blemish, though, and in a couple of outings this year he has registered five fouls in his competition series.
While he might not need a huge throw to make it through qualifying, Fajdek will need to be close to his best in the final if he hopes to claim his first Olympic gold, because USA&rsquo;s Rudy Winkler heads to the Japanese capital in sensational form. 
<img src="https://assets.aws.worldathletics.org/60f817282043744dc64297d1.jpg" alt="" width="950" height="633" />
 The world finalist broke the 80-metre barrier for the first time just last year, but has backed up that form with consistent big throws. He won at the US Olympic Trials with a North American record of 82.71m, producing a series with five 80-metre throws. He commented afterwards how the competition felt almost effortless, suggesting there&rsquo;s more to come.
In recent years, Fajdek has had to look no farther than his home country for top-level opposition. Poland&rsquo;s Wojciech Nowicki beat Fajdek to the European title in 2018 and has earned bronze medals at the past three World Championships.
He also claimed bronze at the 2016 Olympic Games, but will be keen to shake off his reputation as a perennial third-place finisher. A season&rsquo;s best of 81.36m in his final pre-Tokyo competition suggests he&rsquo;s rounding into form at the right time.
Ukrainian youngster Mykhaylo Kokhan, an age-group star over the past few years, finished fifth at the World Championships in Doha and has continued to improve. He beat Fajdek and Nowicki at the recent Continental Tour Gold meeting in Szekesfehervar, throwing a PB of 80.78m &ndash; the best ever throw by a 20-year-old. He may throw farther in Tokyo, though, as he has a knack of producing PBs in major championship finals.
Since taking world silver in 2019, France&rsquo;s Quentin Bigot has also improved. He set a PB of 78.99m at the start of the year and then threw 79.70m in Turku last month.
World and European bronze medallist Bence Halasz is also one to watch. The Hungarian threw a season&rsquo;s best of 78.12m in his last competition before heading to Tokyo.
Others to look out for include USA&rsquo;s Daniel Haugh, who has set five PBs this year, 2017 world silver medallist Valeriy Pronkin, Mexican record-holder Diego Del Real who finished fourth in Rio five years ago, Chilean record-holder Humberto Mansilla, Slovakia&rsquo;s Marcel Lomnicky and British champion Taylor Campbell.
Jon Mulkeen for World Athletics
&nbsp;
<h2>Women's hammer</h2>
<a href="https://www.worldathletics.org/competitions/olympic-games/the-xxxii-olympic-games-athletics-7132391/athletes?competitionGroup=olympic-games&amp;disciplineCode=HT&amp;sexCode=W&amp;urlSlug=the-xxxii-olympic-games-athletics-7132391" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Entries</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.worldathletics.org/competitions/olympic-games/the-xxxii-olympic-games-athletics-7132391/timetable/bydiscipline/women/hammer-throw" target="_blank" rel="noopener">timetable</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.worldathletics.org/world-rankings/hammer-throw/women?regionType=world&amp;page=1&amp;rankDate=2021-07-13&amp;limitByCountry=0" target="_blank" rel="noopener">world rankings</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.worldathletics.org/records/toplists/throws/hammer-throw/outdoor/women/senior/2021?regionType=world&amp;page=1&amp;bestResultsOnly=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2021 world list</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.worldathletics.org/records/all-time-toplists/throws/hammer-throw/outdoor/women/senior?regionType=world&amp;page=1&amp;bestResultsOnly=true&amp;firstDay=1900-01-01&amp;lastDay=2021-07-19" target="_blank" rel="noopener">world all-time list</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.worldathletics.org/disciplines/throws/hammer-throw" target="_blank" rel="noopener">how it works</a>
For a long time, the hammer-throwing world was at Anita Wlodarczyk&rsquo;s feet.
Arguably the most dominant athlete of her generation, the Pole won back-to-back Olympic titles in 2012 and 2016, notched up four world and European golds, and set six world records, becoming the first woman to throw beyond 80 metres. In fact, up until a few weeks ago, she remained the only woman to have ever produced an 80-metre throw.
But her incredible run of form was forced to grind to a halt in 2019 when she underwent knee surgery, meaning she was unable to contend for a fifth world title in Doha.
The postponement of the Olympic Games meant she was able to take her time with rehab, and she returned to competition earlier this year with an encouraging 73.87m in her first outing. But things really started to click at the Szewinska Memorial in Bydgoszcz in late June where Wlodarczyk won with a season&rsquo;s best of 77.93m, giving the Pole a clear sign that she could be competitive once more in Tokyo. 
<img src="https://assets.aws.worldathletics.org/f039dfc4-4c88-4af7-b3a8-bff0eec6d5ee.jpg" alt="" width="950" height="633" />
 But since Wlodarczyk&rsquo;s hiatus, another woman has emerged as the No.1 hammer thrower in the world.
USA&rsquo;s DeAnna Price extended her own North American record to 78.24m in 2019, then went on to win the world title in Doha. The 28-year-old&rsquo;s progression has continued this year, too, with an 78.60m heave in April and, more recently, an 80.31m victory at the US Trials to become just the second woman in history to break the 80-metre barrier.
Although she suffered a couple of losses during the early season, Price is clearly hitting top form at the right time and so will head to Tokyo as the gold medal favourite. And just as she became the first US woman to win a world hammer title in Doha, she could similarly break new ground in Tokyo by becoming the first US woman to win an Olympic hammer title.
In fact, the USA is perhaps the strongest nation in the world at the moment in the women&rsquo;s hammer. Brooke Andersen, who threw 78.18m earlier this year, and Pan-American champion Gwen Berry, a 77.78m performer at her best, make up a formidable trio.
There are many other women capable of throwing in the region of 75 metres, which is typically where medals are won.
Malwina Kopron, the 2017 world bronze medallist, won the Polish title with a season&rsquo;s best of 75.42m and has backed that up with marks of 75.41m, 75.40m and 75.28m.
Alexandra Tavernier, the world bronze medallist in 2015, has been similarly consistent around 75 metres and extended her own French record to 75.38m earlier this year.
No African athlete has ever won an Olympic medal in the hammer, men&rsquo;s or women&rsquo;s, but Nigeria&rsquo;s Annette Echikunwoke could end that drought. The 24-year-old, who hadn&rsquo;t broken 70 metres before this year, set an African record of 75.49m in May.
New Zealand&rsquo;s Lauren Bruce has made a similarly big breakthrough over the past year. She set an Oceanian record of 73.47m last September and improved it to 74.61m two months ago.
China&rsquo;s Wang Zheng, another continental record-holder, has competed sparingly this year and heads to Tokyo with a season&rsquo;s best of 73.55m, but the three-time world medallist can never be discounted.
Others to keep an eye on include Canada&rsquo;s NCAA champion Camryn Rogers, world silver medallist Joanna Fiodorow of Poland, Venezuela&rsquo;s Rosa Rodriguez, New Zealand&rsquo;s Julia Ratcliffe and 18-year-old world U20 record-holder Silja Kosonen of Finland.
Jon Mulkeen for World Athletics

Expected highlights in the women's and men's hammer.

Tokyo Olympics preview: hammer

100 ones to watch in Tokyo: long throws

Marking a historic anniversary, Germany&rsquo;s Karl-Hans Riehm has become the latest world record-breaker to make a generous donation of competition kit to the World Athletics Heritage Collection.
Riehm, the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games silver medallist and multiple world record-breaker in the hammer throw, has not only kindly gifted his Olympic singlet but also the club vest which he wore when he created athletics history 46 years ago today.
Uniquely all six throws surpassed the old world record!
Karl-Hans Riehm&rsquo;s autographed blue singlet of the TV Germania Trier club was worn by him when he broke the hammer world record no less than three times in a single competition on 19 May 1975.
In Rehlingen, Germany, in front of a crowd of 4000 spectators, the West German opened with 76.70m to add four centimetres to the world record that had been set by the USSR&rsquo;s Aleksey Spiridonov the previous year.
On his next attempt, Riehm improved further to 77.56m. A third-round effort of 77.10m followed before he added almost another metre to the world record with a massive effort of 78.50m.
His final two throws reached 77.16m and 77.28m, making Riehm the only athlete in any field event to ever exceed the prevailing world record with all six attempts.
<iframe title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mBOYvICwBvs" width="100%" height="475" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
Riehm holds another rare and distinguished place in athletics history. Along with the USA&rsquo;s Mac Wilkins in the discus throw in San Jose in 1976 and Italian Alessandro Andrei in the shot put in Viareggio in 1987, he is one of three men to have set three world records in one event, in the same competition, on the same day.
<h3>A family wager of 1000 Deutsche Marks</h3>
Reflecting on his day of days, Riehm this week recalled: &ldquo;It was really the extent of my success which made it such a huge surprise. I had an idea that a world record might be possible because I had thrown slightly further in training once. But you can never be sure what the conditions will be like, and humans are not machines.
&ldquo;I phoned my grandfather ahead of the competition and told him that I might be able to throw a world record at the meeting. He did not think that it would be possible and promised me 1000 German Mark if I did it.
<img src="https://assets.aws.worldathletics.org/60a4ce2b1426fc52b5364309.jpg" alt="" width="950" height="600" /> Karl-Hans Riehm during his world record-breaking competition in Rehlingen (&copy;&nbsp;IMAGO)
 &ldquo;The night before the meeting, there was a big party in our home, my parents were celebrating their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. I went over to the neighbours&rsquo; house to sleep, at around 10pm.
&ldquo;The next day, tensions were running high. I came close to the world record distance in the warm-up already. &ldquo;On the first attempt, I threw 76.70m, which was four centimetres over Spiridonov&rsquo;s record. They say that all the tension just evaporates after a world record, but for me it was the opposite. I did not let up. It was as if the floodgates had been opened. &ldquo;On the second attempt, I threw almost a metre further (77.56m) and on the fourth, 78.50m. Over the old world record in all six attempts &ndash; it was incredible.&rdquo;
He added: &ldquo;The funny thing was that after each world record, the competition had to be interrupted. For each world record, the distance had to be measured for a second time with a second steel tape, which was 100m long. Each time, my equipment had to be re-weighed as well, but the scales were in the stadium, so the judges had to run over there each time. &ldquo;After the second world record, they brought the scales over from the stadium and placed them right next to the field, so things sped up after the third world record!&rdquo;
<h3>The Rehlingen crowd went crazy</h3>
<img style="width: 200px; height: 285px; margin-left: 20px; align: right;" src="https://assets.aws.worldathletics.org/60a4cf9a1426fc52b536430f.jpg" alt="Leichtathletik" align="right" />
&ldquo;There were 4000 people there and all the spectators were obviously going crazy," Riehm remembered. &ldquo;Afterwards, I drove home with my wife and I just kept shaking my head and saying: &lsquo;I will never be able to match this again&rsquo;.
&ldquo;None of this would have been possible without the amazing training conditions that we had at the German army&rsquo;s sport development group in Warendorf. We trained 13 sessions a week. Sleep, train, eat. Sunday off to spend time with our families.
&ldquo;To my family&rsquo;s amusement, my grandfather did pay up and give me the 1000 Marks, as promised!&rdquo;
<h3>Moscow boycott and a medal at last</h3>
Riehm went on to throw another world record of 80.32m in 1978. To date this is the last global mark set by a non-Soviet male hammer thrower.
At the age of 33, and at his third Olympics, Riehm finally climbed the podium at the Los Angeles 1984 Olympic Games.
He had finished 10th and then fourth at the 1972 and 1976 Olympic Games but the West German boycott of the Moscow 1980 Olympic Games, when he had thrown over 80 metres and was the best thrower in the world outside of the Soviet Union, had robbed him of his best chance for a medal up to that point.
However, in a reversal of circumstances, the Soviet throwers were absent from the 1984 Olympic Games and Riehm took full advantage. He threw 77.98m to take the silver medal, just 10cm behind the Finnish winner Juha Tiainen.
<h3>On public display from July</h3>
Riehm&rsquo;s two donated singlets will go on permanent exhibition in the Museum of World Athletics (MOWA) in July.
<img src="https://assets.aws.worldathletics.org/60a4cec11426fc52b536430c.jpg" alt="" width="950" height="612" /> The vests will be introduced to the museum&rsquo;s displays along with another 60 new artefacts, when <a href="https://www.worldathletics.org/heritage/mowa" target="_blank" rel="noopener">phase 2 of the world&rsquo;s first 3D virtual sports museum is launched</a>.
Post-pandemic, when actual public exhibitions are again possible, the singlets will also be displayed at major global athletics events.
Chris Turner for World Athletics Heritage
With many thanks to Olaf Brockmann for his assistance in coordinating the donation.

Marking a historic anniversary, Germany’s Karl-Hans Riehm has become the latest world record-breaker to make a generous donation of competition kit to the World Athletics Heritage Collection.

Riehm's three world records left Rehlingen reeling with delight

Four-time world hammer champions Anita Wlodarczyk and Pawel Fajdek are among the first star names confirmed for the Paavo Nurmi Games &ndash; a World Athletics Continental Tour Gold meeting &ndash; in the Finnish city of Turku on 7-8 June.
When Wlodarczyk last competed at the Paavo Nurmi Games, she set a meeting record of 75.61m. Just one week later, however, she cut short her 2019 season due to injury and subsequently sat out the entire year in 2020.
Earlier this month, however, the two-time Olympic champion from Poland returned to action with an encouraging 73.87m at a low-key competition in Antalya. The 35-year-old is now ready to line up at top-flight competitions as she prepares to defend her Olympic title in Tokyo later this year.
Compatriot Fajdek will also be making a return appearance in Turku. He won in 2015, broke the meeting record with 81.12m in 2016 and extended it to 82.40m in 2017.
He will be joined in Turku by the three athletes with whom he shared the podium at the World Athletics Championships Doha 2019. Compatriot Wojciech Nowicki, who beat Fajdek in Turku in 2018, fellow world bronze medallist Bence Halasz of Hungary and world silver medallist Quentin Bigot are all set to compete.
World champion Daniel Stahl will contest the discus at the Paavo Nurmi Games for the third time. The Swedish thrower set a meeting record of 69.23m in Turku last year. He also had a throw that landed beyond the 70-metre line, but it was later ruled to be a foul after the referee analysed video footage of the performance.
Stahl will no doubt be keen to achieve a valid 70-metre throw in Turku next month when he lines up against 2017 world champion Andrius Gudzius of Lithuania.
German javelin duo Johannes Vetter and Thomas R&ouml;hler also return. Vetter, the 2017 world champion, won in Turku last year with 91.49m, breaking the 91.28m meeting record that had been set in 2016 by Olympic champion R&ouml;hler.
Vetter, who last year produced the second-best throw in history with his 97.76m effort in Chorzow, has started 2021 in fine form, throwing 91.50m in Offenburg at the end of April.
In the women&rsquo;s triple jump, world indoor silver medallist Kimberly Williams of Jamaica takes on European champion Paraskevi Papahristou of Greece, while the men&rsquo;s 800m line-up includes world indoor champion Adam Kszczot, and European indoor medallists Mateusz Borkowski and Jamie Webb.
Organisers for World Athletics

Four-time world hammer champions Anita Wlodarczyk and Pawel Fajdek are among the first star names confirmed for the Paavo Nurmi Games – a World Athletics Continental Tour Gold meeting – in the Finnish city of Turku on 7-8 June.

Wlodarczyk leads strong throws cast for Turku

World-leading marks achieved at this stage of the season don&rsquo;t tend to leave too much of an imprint on the world all-time lists, but Shaunae Miller-Uibo&rsquo;s 49.08 to win the 400m at the USATF Grand Prix in Eugene &ndash; the first World Athletics Continental Tour Gold meeting of 2021 &ndash; broke the stadium record for an iconic venue.
The Bahamian Olympic champion ran a well-timed race. She held a slight lead at half way and still had USA&rsquo;s Lynna Irby for company on the final bend, but she opened up a clear margin on the rest of the field down the home straight to cross the line in 49.08, the fourth-fastest time of her career.
It also chopped 0.26 from the previous stadium record, set in 2003 by Ana Guevara. Global champions Sanya Richards-Ross, Allyson Felix and Tonique Williams-Darling are among the other past winners on the Hayward Field track, so Miller-Uibo will gain a boost in confidence knowing that she has out-performed such legendary athletes at this venue.
&ldquo;The 400 is my favourite event, so I love coming in and trying to figure it out and having some fun with unravelling the secrets of it,&rdquo; said the world silver medallist. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve been really working on getting our strength up and now that we are in the middle of the season we are going to work on speed and getting ready to put down some great performances in the 200s.&rdquo;
Irby finished second in 50.28, holding off Jessica Beard (50.38).
<h3>Winkler and Andersen make big statements in the hammer</h3>
World finalist Rudy Winkler showed his breakthrough into 80-metre territory last year was no fluke, producing the best mark of his career to win the hammer with 81.98m.
He opened with a trio of throws that fell just shy of 78 metres, then followed it with a foul in the fourth round. He found his rhythm in round five, though, throwing 80.09m and then went even farther with his final throw of the competition, sending his hammer out to 81.98m.
Not only did he smash his previous best, he moved up to second on the North American all-time list, just 54 centimetres shy of area record-holder Lance Deal.
&ldquo;My first couple of throws were not right technically,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;but on my last two throws I executed the way I wanted and threw a personal best.&rdquo;
In the women&rsquo;s hammer, world champion DeAnna Price suffered a rare defeat to a domestic rival as Brooke Andersen backed up her recent breakthrough to win with 77.99m.
Price led after the first two rounds with a best of 72.85m, but Andersen responded in round three with 77.56m. Price improved to 76.15m in round five, but couldn&rsquo;t catch Andersen, who threw 77.79m in round four and 77.99m in round five.
Andersen&rsquo;s winning mark is just 19 centimetres shy of the PB she set two weeks ago. More significantly, though, it&rsquo;s the first time she has beaten Price.
<h3>Camacho-Quinn dominates sprint hurdles</h3>
Light rain started to fall half way through the competition programme, but it did little to slow down Jasmine Camacho-Quinn in the 100m hurdles.
The Puerto Rican blasted out of the blocks and could not be caught, storming clear to win in 12.46 &ndash; just 0.14 of the world-leading PB she set last week. Jamaica&rsquo;s Brittany Anderson was a distant second in 12.82 with USA&rsquo;s Taliyah Brooks (12.83) and Sydney McLaughlin (12.86) close behind.
The conditions may have hampered the times in the men&rsquo;s 400m, but it was still an exciting spectacle as USA&rsquo;s Michael Norman held off a strong challenge from training partner Rai Benjamin.
Norman ran a controlled first half, going through 200m with a slight lead over Michael Cherry and Benjamin. Coming off the final bend, though, Benjamin drew level with Norman and then edged ahead very slightly, but Norman responded well and regained the lead.
Norman won in 44.67 with Benjamin taking second in 44.97. Teenager Justin Robinson was third in 45.55.
Blessing Okagbare came through strongly in the closing stages of the 100m to win in 10.97 with Morolake Akinosun finishing second in 11.09.
Trayvon Bromell&rsquo;s approach to the men&rsquo;s 100m was the polar opposite but no less effective. The 2016 world indoor champion exploded out of the blocks and had a huge lead at half way. World 200m champion Noah Lyles made up a bit of ground in the second half, but couldn&rsquo;t catch Bromell, who won in 10.01 to Lyles&rsquo; 10.17.
<h3>British double for Muir and McColgan</h3>
Laura Muir and fellow Briton Eilish McColgan dominated the 1500m and 5000m respectively.
Muir ran well ahead of the pacemaker from the early stages of the 1500m and by the time she reached the bell, she had a five-second lead over the rest of the field. She went on to win in 4:01.54 as USA&rsquo;s Helen Schlachtenhaufen came through to take second place in 4:04.36.
Earlier in the programme, McColgan produced a convincing run to win the 5000m in 14:52.44, covering the final kilometre in 2:52, despite having no one to push her. USA&rsquo;s Abbey Cooper was a distant second in 15:13.27.
Oliver Hoare, who set an Oceanian indoor 1500m record earlier this year, broke his outdoor PB to win the men&rsquo;s 1500m. He doggedly stuck to the pacemaker from the outset, then maintained the pace to win unopposed in 3:33.54.
Canada&rsquo;s Justyn Knight was second in 3:35.85, while world 800m champion Donavan Brazier was third in 3:37.58.
Elsewhere, world champion Anderson Peters won the javelin with 82.72m, and Chase Ealey took the women&rsquo;s shot put with 18.93m.
Jon Mulkeen for World Athletics

World-leading marks achieved at this stage of the season don’t tend to leave too much of an imprint on the world all-time lists, but Shaunae Miller-Uibo’s 49.08 to win the 400m at the USATF Grand Prix in Eugene – the first World Athletics Continental Tour Gold meeting of 2021 – broke the stadium record for an iconic venue.

Miller-Uibo smashes stadium record in Eugene

A top-quality hammer showdown lit up day one of the rescheduled New Zealand Track &amp; Field Championships in Hastings on Friday (26) as Julia Ratcliffe defeated her Kiwi rival Lauren Bruce with a mighty Oceania record throw of 73.55m.
Since Bruce set the previous Oceania record with a huge five-metre-plus improvement and 73.47m mark at the same Mitre 10 Park venue back in September, she has emerged as New Zealand&rsquo;s pre-eminent hammer thrower.
However, Ratcliffe, the Commonwealth champion and the fourth-place finisher at the 2012 World U20 Championships, is a fantastic competitor and rose to the challenge magnificently at the modified two-day meet, which three weeks earlier had been postponed because of Covid-19 restrictions in New Zealand.
Returning to Hastings, where two months earlier she failed to register a mark with her three throws, Ratcliffe surprised herself by smashing her PB by more than a metre and surpassing the Olympic qualification mark in round one with a 73.40m effort, going out &ldquo;for a safe one&rdquo;.
Her confidence buoyed, in round four she then added a further 15 centimetres to that mark to better Bruce&rsquo;s Oceania record and seal a memorable competition.
Bruce performed solidly with a fourth-round best of 72.76m but today had to concede defeat to her more experienced rival, who secured national title number six.
&ldquo;It feels so good to get the Olympic qualification mark off my plate and I can finally focus on building up for Tokyo,&rdquo; Ratcliffe said.
&ldquo;It was just awesome. It was like the culmination of 16 years of training with Dave (coach and father) in the crowd. In the last week or so training has been up and down, so to keep it altogether was the big challenge. It was more than I could have hoped.&rdquo;
<h3>Walsh collects 12th straight title</h3>
Tom Walsh secured a 12th successive national shot title with a season&rsquo;s best effort and championship best performance of 21.79m.
Minus the absent Jacko Gill, who opted not to extend his domestic season to compete at nationals in order to start his preparation for the Tokyo Olympics, Walsh was never seriously threatened and cruised to a comfortable win.
&ldquo;I&rsquo;m really happy with four of the throws today, I&rsquo;m starting to feel like I do when I throw far,&rdquo; said Walsh. &ldquo;I just wasn&rsquo;t quite nailing it off the hand.
&ldquo;I did exactly what I wanted to do today through the comp. Earlier in the season I was beating myself up through the competitions but I got myself out of the hole I&rsquo;d dug myself. I&rsquo;m happy with the way it went.&rdquo;
<h3>Title No.17 for Adams</h3>
Ten-time global champion Valerie Adams, who had been given a huge lift by securing her longest throw for five years with 19.65m at the Sir Graeme Douglas International in Auckland four weeks ago, claimed a record-equalling 17th national shot title.
Struggling to find any rhythm on a frustrating day, her best effort of 18.43m was delivered in round six.
&ldquo;It is really awesome to win title number 17 tonight but I&rsquo;m really gutted with how I performed tonight. But that&rsquo;s the name of the game, you have to perform the very best you can.&rdquo;
World U20 champion Maddison Wesche earned silver with 17.38m.
Away from the throws, Zoe Hobbs equalled the 28-year-old New Zealand women&rsquo;s 100m record of 11.32 (1.4m/s).&nbsp;The 23-year-old sprinter has enjoyed a dominant summer and chipped 0.02 from her previous best to claim a victory which evoked mixed emotions.
&ldquo;It is a relief, although it is bittersweet because it would have been nice to get that outright record,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;It will be nice to take that next step &ndash; the outright record is now only 0.01 away!&rdquo;
Triathlete Hayden Wilde successfully defended his national 5000m title in 13:43.53 to take out the 25-year-old championship best performance and offer further evidence of his pure running ability. Last month, the 23-year-old ran a 5000m PB of 13:29.47 in Hamilton and still harbours hopes of potentially appearing at the Tokyo Olympics in two sports.
Camille Buscomb's hopes of an ambitious and rarely achieved 800m-1500m-5000m treble faltered at the first hurdle as she had to settle for bronze in the two-lap event.
The 2019 World Championships 5000m and 10,000m 12th-place finisher was outclassed by Katherine Camp (2:06.50) with Buscomb a further 1.83 seconds back in bronze.
Buscomb returned just over three-and-a-half hours later, however, to secure her fourth national title in the 5000m (16:17.30). She returns on day two for a crack at the 1500m.
New Zealand men&rsquo;s high jump record-holder Hamish Kerr, who set his outright national record of 2.31m in Wellington last month, was a little below-par en route to winning his sixth national title with a best of 2.24m.
Shay Veitch scored an unlikely men&rsquo;s long jump and 100m double. The versatile 20-year-old athlete - who last year won 400m silver &ndash; leapt a wind-assisted 7.78m (2.4m/s) before just over an hour later returning to the track to collect the men&rsquo;s 100m title in a seriously depleted field. Veitch stopped the clock in 10.38 (3.8m/s).
Steve Landells for World Athletics

A top-quality hammer showdown lit up day one of the rescheduled New Zealand Track & Field Championships in Hastings on Friday (26) as Julia Ratcliffe defeated her Kiwi rival Lauren Bruce with a mighty Oceania record throw of 73.55m.

Ratcliffe breaks Oceania hammer record with 73.55m in Hastings

Commonwealth champion Julia Ratcliffe delivers the highlight of the opening day of New Zealand's national championships.

To anyone looking at the results from afar, Lauren Bruce&rsquo;s Oceania hammer record of 73.47m last September seemed something of an anomaly.
Her previous best was 68.14m, yet in one competition she had not only broken 70 metres for the first time in her career, but had also surpassed 73 metres.
But in the months that have followed, Bruce has shown that her record-breaking throw was no fluke and, with a string of nine 70-metre competitions, has firmly marked herself as one to watch.
Nevertheless, that five-metre improvement in Hastings to place sixth place on the 2020 world list, along with her subsequent Olympic qualifying marks, was unquestionably a dramatic rise to prominence for the 23-year-old Kiwi thrower. Yet to gain a greater understanding of the journey undertaken by the young hammer ace, it is impossible to ignore 2017 world shot put champion Tom Walsh.
In a spookily similar career path, the pair both hail from the small port city of Timaru (population 46,000) on New Zealand&rsquo;s picture postcard South Island. The duo both initially developed through the coaching acumen of Ian Baird and today are both guided by influential Australian Dale Stevenson.
Bruce&rsquo;s goal is to maintain her rate of progression and one day go on to achieve the same level of sustained global success enjoyed by Walsh.
&ldquo;Having qualified for Tokyo, this now puts me in a position to compete at every major championships,&rdquo; explains Bruce of her future ambitions. &ldquo;In the next few years they will come thick and fast and the biggest challenge will be using them to step closer to expressing my full potential. A big part of why I throw is trying to figure out that puzzle.&rdquo;
Bruce took up athletics at the age of eight, competing predominantly as a sprinter and jumper. But as a youngster, gymnastics was her primary sport.
She performed to a high standard and earned a national level silver medal on the uneven bars, but nine years ago she picked up a stress fracture of the back. Ruled out of sporting activity for six months and concerned gymnastics was taking a toll on her body, she quit and focused her energy on athletics.
Baird introduced Bruce to the hammer and she quickly developed into a promising &lsquo;leftie&rsquo; thrower.
&ldquo;I remember doing a couple of sessions and asking my coach if I could switch from spinning anti-clockwise to clockwise,&rdquo; she recalls. &ldquo;I am right handed throwing the discus and shot, but for whatever reason I found myself more comfortable rotating the other way for hammer, perhaps from my time spinning clockwise as a gymnast. As soon as I started throwing left-handed, it felt natural to me. I quickly improved and got sucked into the hammer.&rdquo;
The good body awareness from her gymnastics background, coupled with her natural strength, proved a winning combination and Bruce made an impact on the age-group scene, winning national titles in both hammer and discus. 
<img src="https://assets.aws.worldathletics.org/6059e5b7f565fc848a23d832.jpg" alt="" width="950" height="1049" /> Lauren Bruce in action at the World U20 Championships Bydgoszcz 2016 (&copy; Getty Images)
&nbsp;
In 2016 she earned selection to represent New Zealand in the discus and hammer at the World U20 Championships in Bydgoszcz. After setting a hammer PB of 60.35m at a low-key meeting in Germany just two weeks before the championships, she was optimistic of a good showing.
She underperformed in both events, though, hurling a best of 55.17m to place 23rd in hammer qualifying and falling almost seven meters shy of her best in the discus (42.30m) in 24th.
&ldquo;I was hugely disappointed,&rdquo; she explains. &ldquo;Going overseas to compete in a big event for the first time was a great experience and looking back it was hugely valuable. But at the time I didn&rsquo;t feel like I belonged in that company. It was a bit of a wake-up call.&rdquo;
The following year, on Baird&rsquo;s recommendation, Bruce joined the Christchurch-based coaching group of Dale Stevenson, who was achieving big results with Walsh.
Without question, the move to Stevenson has played an instrumental part in Bruce&rsquo;s subsequent success.
&ldquo;He&rsquo;s had a huge influence,&rdquo; explains Bruce. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s sat on both sides of the fence with having been an athlete to the highest level himself (he competed at the London 2012 Olympics in shot) which is incredibly valuable for us.
&ldquo;Obviously, in the past shot put has been more his thing but he has put a lot of time and energy into understanding the event, so he could help me. Over the last year to year and a half we&rsquo;ve made some huge progress.&rdquo;
Yet Bruce&rsquo;s road has been far from smooth. In 2018 she extended her PB to 62.42m during the domestic season in New Zealand but struggled to replicate that form during a trip to Europe.
The under-par results started to take a toll mentally and for a period she weighed up whether she wanted to continue in the sport.
&ldquo;My identity had become so wound up in the sport, I just couldn&rsquo;t let go of a bad competition or a bad training session,&rdquo; she explains. &ldquo;It got to the point I didn&rsquo;t even know if I enjoyed the sport anymore.&rdquo;
Bruce took three months away from the sport to recalibrate before returning to athletics. Slowly, her passion for the sport returned, although her future hammer success was not immediately apparent after opting to prioritise the discus in 2019.
She duly qualified in the discus for the World University Games but while there also took up the option of competing in the hammer. In Naples, Bruce underperformed in the discus, placing 20th, but bounced back to finish seventh in the hammer with 62.50m &ndash; just half a metre shy of her PB.
That competition triggered some critical changes which set Bruce on the road to success.
&ldquo;I came out of that competition feeling like I still didn&rsquo;t really belong out there,&rdquo; she explains. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s what really got the ball rolling for me to make a mental shift to carry myself with more confidence.&rdquo;
Later that year, and in consultation with her coach, Bruce decided to focus on the hammer.
&ldquo;For a long time, I held on to always having something else alongside hammer,&rdquo; she explains. &ldquo;I realise now I liked the security of having another event to fall back on. If the hammer did not go well, I&rsquo;d channel my frustration into the discus.
&ldquo;I distinctly remember the conversation in the car park with my coach after training one day when he said &lsquo;you are going to have to choose one event; if you keep trying to do both you&rsquo;re not going to qualify for the Olympics at all&rsquo;.&rdquo;
Focusing solely on one event has given her the time and clear-eyed focus to make the necessary technical refinements. During the 2020 New Zealand summer season she added more than five metres to her to PB, going out to a best of 68.14m.
Then, coming out of lockdown last year, she made another important decision on her road to improvement by ditching her 25-hour a week job working for a food company to focus 100% on hammer.
Becoming a full-time athlete has led to huge gains in training, all of which resulted in that huge five-metre plus PB of 73.47m in Hastings &ndash; a moment which was much less of a surprise to her as it was for many others.
&ldquo;It was honestly more of a relief,&rdquo; she says of surpassing the Oceania record of 72.35m which had been set earlier in 2020 by fellow Kiwi Julia Ratcliffe, the Commonwealth champion. &ldquo;I think I&rsquo;ve known for some time I could throw farther than I had done previously. In training my distances had been slowly creeping up. To finally do that in a competition was further confirmation of this.&rdquo; 
<img src="https://assets.aws.worldathletics.org/6059e60cf565fc848a23d835.jpg" alt="" width="950" height="687" /> Lauren Bruce, Valerie Adams and Kasandra Vegas at the 2016 New Zealand Championships (&copy; Getty Images)
&nbsp;
Training four to five times a week in the gym with three to four throwing sessions, Bruce admits her strength is her strength. Able to clean 125kg with the Olympic weights and snatch 100kg, she enjoys the challenge of chasing her new training partner Valerie Adams, the double Olympic champion, who has recently joined the group.
Bruce says her natural power allows her to occasionally &lsquo;bully&rsquo; the hammer but also admits she has recently made some real technical advancements.
During the New Zealand season her consistent 70-metre form has given her validation she is on the right track. Meanwhile, the motivation she gets from her rivalry with Ratcliffe has also acted as another spur.
The pair have elevated the women&rsquo;s hammer to one of the marquee events in New Zealand athletics &ndash; perhaps best illustrated by the fact in February&rsquo;s Porritt Classic it formed the concluding field event of the meet.
&ldquo;Normally the hammer is always pre-meet, so to be held as the final event shows how far we have come,&rdquo; says Bruce.
For the remainder of the New Zealand domestic season she is targeting a maiden national senior title and would also like to advance her Oceania record.
&ldquo;I would like to break my record again,&rdquo; says Bruce who, since throwing her Oceania record, has thrown beyond 70 metres in all nine of her subsequent competitions. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m getting close to going over 75m.&rdquo; 
<img src="https://assets.aws.worldathletics.org/6059e737d64730bd1c38c39f.jpg" alt="" width="950" height="633" /> Lauren Bruce in action in the hammer (&copy; Alisha Lovrich)
&nbsp;
With the Olympic qualification mark comfortably secured, she has some big aims for Tokyo but is not prepared to make any predictions.
&ldquo;We are still five months away from the Games and I know how much I&rsquo;ve improved over the previous five months, so I don&rsquo;t want to set a limit on what might be possible. I&rsquo;m more than capable of making the final, although in terms of how I want to perform, we&rsquo;ll just have to wait and see where I&rsquo;m at come August.&rdquo;
Yet it would be remiss not to mention Walsh and the role he has played in her progression.
&ldquo;As we come from similar backgrounds, we definitely have quite a bit in common and I&rsquo;d say I consider him somewhat of an older brother,&rdquo; Bruce explains. &ldquo;He is definitely someone I can go to for advice because he has such a wealth of knowledge and experience.
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s pretty cool to have him around because he has shown the path you can take coming from a small town to competing on the world stage at the highest level.&rdquo;
A path it seems like Bruce is already treading.
Steve Landells for World Athletics

To anyone looking at the results from afar, Lauren Bruce’s Oceania hammer record of 73.47m last September seemed something of an anomaly.

Now focused solely on hammer, Bruce looks to become global contender

As this extraordinary year draws to a close, we look back at the key moments of 2020 in each area of the sport. The series continues today with a review of the throwing disciplines.
&nbsp;
<h3>Women&rsquo;s shot put</h3>
Despite turning 30 this summer, Auriol Dongmo was the revelation of the outdoor season. She came into 2020 with one single put beyond 18 metres in her career and left it as joint world leader &ndash; with world champion Gong Lijiao &ndash; at 19.53m.
Dongmo, who this year transferred from Cameroon to Portugal, won two World Athletics Continental Tour meetings and remained undefeated during the outdoor season. Statistically she backed up that massive PB with three more meets at 18.85m or better.
Gong produced the top mark of the year (19.70m) indoors in February in what was to be the lead up to the World Indoor Championships, originally planned for mid-March on her home soil in Nanjing. But the World Indoors had to be cancelled and with the Olympics postponed one year, Gong had just one outdoor competition this year, in which she equalled the world lead (19.53m).
With almost no international competitions available, many other of the top shot putters &ndash; just like Gong &ndash; only had a couple of local appearances or even skipped the outdoor season altogether. The number of athletes throwing beyond 18 metres was almost halved from last year; especially noticeable was the drop in the US presence, from 12 at 18m+ in 2019 to just three in 2020.
&nbsp;
<h3>Men&rsquo;s shot put</h3>
Following the narrowest of losses at the World Athletics Championships Doha 2019, USA&rsquo;s Ryan Crouser was easily the top shot putter in 2020.
The 28-year-old was unbeaten in all of his 11 competitions during the season and the only athlete to throw beyond 22 metres in 2020. Crouser did it in style, too, beating the 22-metre line in all but one of those competitions.
In July he threw a world-leading PB of 22.91m, moving to equal third on the world all-time list. Only two athletes &ndash; world record-holder Randy Barnes (23.12m) and Ulf Timmermann (23.06m) &ndash; have reached 23 metres, but Crouser is closing in on that barrier. 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Another shot put exhibition from <a href="https://twitter.com/RCrouserThrows?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@RCrouserThrows</a>. He was over the 22-metre-line four times at the <a href="https://twitter.com/ZlataTretra?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ZlataTretra</a>; his 22.43m leads the throws action.<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ContinentalTourGold?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ContinentalTourGold</a> <a href="https://t.co/7TdoO7H1hM">pic.twitter.com/7TdoO7H1hM</a>
&mdash; Continental Tour Gold (@ContiTourGold) <a href="https://twitter.com/ContiTourGold/status/1303458043036868610?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 8, 2020</a></blockquote>
 Barnes also holds the world indoor record at 22.66m from 1989, but Crouser also came really close to this mark when winning the US indoor title with 22.60m, moving to second on the world indoor all-time list.
While Crouser hasn&rsquo;t yet set a world record, he has already established himself as one of the greatest throwers ever. 105 throws beyond 22 metres is almost triple the number of 22-metre throws by Ulf Timmermann, the second-most prolific 22m thrower.
In 2020 Crouser had 54 measured throws with an average of 22.20m. This is the first time in shot put history when a thrower&rsquo;s average has been beyond 22 metres.
Crouser aside, 2020 marked a breakthrough season for Italy&rsquo;s Leonardo Fabbri, who threw a PB of 21.99m in Padua in August. World indoor champion Tom Walsh didn&rsquo;t compete outside New Zealand, but still managed to register a season&rsquo;s best of 21.70m. World champion Joe Kovacs competed just a handful of times, ending the year with a best of 21.30m in Zagreb.
Despite the obvious disruptions to the season, 17 men managed to throw beyond 21 metres during the outdoor season, which is slightly down on the number from last year (26) but equal with the figure from 2018.
&nbsp;
<h3>Women&rsquo;s discus</h3>
In the modern era, marks beyond 70 metres have been few and far between.
From 2000 onwards it took until 2014 for the first 70-metre performance. Since then, there had been just 12 such marks &ndash; 11 by Sandra Perkovic and one by Denia Caballero.
But on 1 August this year they were joined in the &rsquo;70-metre club&rsquo; by USA&rsquo;s Valarie Allman, who hit 70.15m on her opening attempt at a special throws meet in Rathdrum, Idaho. For Allman &ndash; who finished seventh at last year&rsquo;s World Championships in Doha &ndash; it was a huge improvement as her previous PB of 67.15m had been her only previous throw beyond 66 metres. Allman opened and closed her season with that competition, so confirmation of her newfound capacity will have to wait until 2021.
No one else in the world threw beyond 66 metres this year, but double Olympic champion Sandra Perkovic made a couple of notable appearances on home soil, throwing 65.93m in Split in March and 64.67m to win at the Continental Tour Gold meeting in Zagreb in September.
World champion Yaime Perez and fellow Cuban Denia Caballero enjoyed a few duels at the start of the year. Perez won all but one of their clashes, ending with a season&rsquo;s best of 64.76m.
&nbsp;
<h3>Men&rsquo;s discus</h3>
Results wise, throwing disciplines seemed to lose very little at the top during the otherwise thin season. The men&rsquo;s discus was no different with several athletes consistently hitting good marks.
Daniel St&aring;hl was the clear No.1 discus thrower in the world during 2020.
The 28-year-old Swede competed 20 times in 2020 and recorded 18 victories. Between June and September, St&aring;hl won 15 competitions in a row, hitting 70 metres twice and 69 metres five times.
Not counting a competition in June when St&aring;hl failed to register a valid throw, 2017 world champion Andrius Gudzius was the only athlete to beat the giant Swede, doing so at the Continental Tour meeting in Berlin (66.72m to 65.89m). Gudzius enjoyed a strong season, throwing beyond 68 metres on four occasions.
Several other athletes were near or beyond the 70-metre line during the season, but a few of them only achieved it once and it remains to be the seen if they really can back up these one-time big throws in the future.
Colombian Mauricio Ortega threw a South American record of 70.29m in Vila Nova de Cerveira, Portugal, in June, but did not get close to that result in other meetings. Same goes for Juan Jos&eacute; Caicedo, who set an Ecuadorian record of 69.60m at that same competition. Iceland&rsquo;s Gudni Valur Gudnason is another example; he set a national record of 69.35m in September.
Jamaica&rsquo;s world silver medallist Fedrick Dacres stayed home all year, reaching a 69.67m season&rsquo;s best in February. Slovenia&rsquo;s Kristjan Čeh, meanwhile, emerged as a serious contender. The 21-year-old broke the Slovenian record with 68.75m in June and consistently threw beyond 65 metres at big invitational competitions against top opponents.
&nbsp;
<h3>Women&rsquo;s hammer</h3>
World record-holder Anita Wlodarczyk took the year off, as did wold champion DeAnna Price once it became clear that the Tokyo Olympics would be postponed until 2021. The other world medallists, Joanna Fiodorow and Wang Zheng, meanwhile, had low-key seasons.
Instead it was World Championships sixth-place finisher Alexandra Tavernier who had the strongest season with six meets, six wins and all competitions beyond 72.50m. She twice broke her own French record, throwing 74.94m in July and 75.23m in September.
Tavernier just missed registering the world-leading mark as that honour went to Hanna Malyshchyk who threw 22 centimetres farther &ndash; 75.45m &ndash; in February. But Tavernier got the better of the Belarusian in their only clash of 2020, winning in Szekesfehervar with 73.09m to Malyshchyk&rsquo;s 70.59m. 
<img src="https://media.aws.iaaf.org/media/Carousel2/10340a06-a413-4625-8837-50a9d8688385.jpg?cachebuster=aac3d2ad-2100-4b58-bb60-67c4eaf1004a" alt="" width="950" height="570" />
 Tavernier this year also lost her No.3 position on the world U20 all-time list to Finland&rsquo;s Silja Kosonen, who, at the age of 17, threw 71.34m in July. The world U20 record has stood to China&rsquo;s Zhang Wenxiu at 73.24m since 2005 but Kosonen has one more year as an U20 so could move further up the all-time list.
&nbsp;
<h3>Men&rsquo;s hammer</h3>
There may not have been any truly huge marks in the men&rsquo;s hammer this year, but two athletes managed to surpass 80 metres, one of them doing so for the first time in their career.
USA&rsquo;s Rudy Winkler ended the season as the surprise world leader. The 26-year-old, whose previous best of 77.06m was set in the qualifying round at last year&rsquo;s World Championships, threw 80.70m in July. Winkler competed two more times, but while his throws landed beyond 80 metres (80.72m and 80.07m), both results were achieved in a downhill facility in Middletown, New York.
Three-time world bronze medallist Wojciech Nowicki was the most consistent thrower this summer. The 31-year-old won his first four meets and then placed second behind fellow Pole Pawel Fajdek in the last two. Nowicki had two competitions beyond 80 metres in August within the space of three days, throwing 80.09m in Chorz&oacute;w and then an 80.28m season&rsquo;s best to win the Polish title.
Fajdek, winner of the past four world titles, closed the season well with three wins and a 79.81m season&rsquo;s best.
World bronze medallist Bence Hal&aacute;sz of Hungary competed mainly in small competitions at home. He won the Hungarian title with a 79.88m personal best in August, and placed second in Szekesfehervar and Ch&oacute;rzow.
There was another newcomer to the hammer scene in the form of Aaron Kangas. The Finn won all of his 11 meets during the season, all of them in his home country, topped by a personal best of 79.05m in Espoo in August.
&nbsp;
<h3>Women&rsquo;s javelin</h3>
In contrast to the other throwing events, nine of the top 10 women from 2019 competed at a high level also this year.
Only world champion Kelsey-Lee Barber was missing in action, opting instead to focus exclusively on training for 2021. The other two World Championships medallists from 2019 &ndash; China&rsquo;s Liu Shiyin and Lyu Huihui &ndash; topped the world list with distances beyond 67 metres.
Unfortunately there were few opportunities for the top throwers from different countries to go head-to-head. The main encounter took place at the Continental Tour Gold meeting in Ostrava where 39-year old world record-holder Barbora Spotakova threw 65.19m to once again triumph over the younger generation, represented on this occasion by Maria Andrzejczyk, Nikola Ogrodnikova, Lina Muze and Sara Kolak.
This year also marked a big breakthrough for Greece&rsquo;s Elina Tzengko who, at the age of 17, threw 63.96m at a meeting in Ioannina. It was 10 centimetres farther than the world U20 record, but her mark could not be ratified. Nevertheless, Tzengko backed up that performance with marks beyond 61 metres in her other competitions this year.
Tzengko also proved herself as a competitor; she threw 62.21m in Kladno in September, losing only to Spotakova and Ogrodnikova and defeating Andrzejczyk and double Olympic finalist Madara Palameika.
&nbsp;
<h3>Men&rsquo;s javelin</h3>
Only one of the top names really excelled in the javelin this season.
Germany&rsquo;s Johannes Vetter was the only man beyond 90 metres in 2020. And the 2017 world champion did just creep over the 90-metre line; he absolutely crushed it. 
<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iu-VANtP78Q" width="100%" height="450" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
 The 27-year-old had an almost perfect season with a total of five throws at 90.00m or farther. His only disappointment was his season opener in July when he failed to register a valid throw, but he followed that with nine straight wins.
He first surpassed the 90-metre line in Turku in June with his opener landing at 91.49m, his best throw in two years and three months. His next 90-metre meeting was in Chorz&oacute;w two weeks later when he won with 90.86m and had another throw landing at exactly 90.00m.
Vetter returned to Chorz&oacute;w in September and hit a crazy 97.76m national record in round three, the second-best throw in history and less than a metre from Jan Zelezny&rsquo;s 24-year-old world record of 98.48m. Another monster in the next round, 94.84m, underlined that the Czech&rsquo;s record is finally in jeopardy.
Many top names were totally absent and for others their season was really short. India&rsquo;s world U20 record-holder and 2016 world U20 champion Neeraj Chopra competed only once, throwing 87.86m in South Africa in January.Towards the end of the year, meanwhile, South Africa&rsquo;s Rocco van Rooyen smashed his PB with 87.62m in November to end the year at third place on the world list.
Mirko Jalava (men&rsquo;s disciplines) and A Lennart Julin (women&rsquo;s disciplines) for World Athletics

A look back at the key moments of 2020 in the throws

2020 review: throws

In anticipation, few events at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games seemed as predictable as the women&rsquo;s hammer.
World record-holder and world champion Mihaela Melinte of Romania and her closest rival, Olga Kuzenkova of Russia, had a lock on the gold and silver medals with only the order to be decided. The rest were battling for the bronze medal.
If that was the pre-ordained order, someone forgot to tell Kamila Skolimowska, who rose to the occasion to take the most unexpected gold medal of the Games. A month short of her 18th birthday and already world U18 champion and world U20 record-holder, the Polish teen may clearly have been one for the future &ndash; but few expected the future to arrive on 29 September 2000.
Skolimowska&rsquo;s victory completed a hammer double for Poland. Szymon Ziolkowski had taken the men&rsquo;s gold medal a few days earlier. Ziolkowski himself had just turned 24, though that seemed to make him almost a doddering veteran alongside his co-gold medallist.
Sydney was the first Olympics at which the women&rsquo;s hammer had been contested. The event had made its World Championships debut in Seville the previous year &ndash; Melinte and Kuzenokova the gold and silver medallists, respectively &ndash; and been introduced at European and Commonwealth level a year before that.
Skolimowska and Ziolkowski both established legacies, especially so in the case of Skolimowska. Before Sydney, Poland had taken just one Olympic and one World Championships bronze medal in men&rsquo;s hammer. In the most recent decade, Polish throwers Pawel Fajdek and Wojcech Nowicki have been dominant forces.
Skolimowska&rsquo;s impact was just as pronounced, with a direct link to 2012 and 2016 Olympic champion Anita Wlodarczyk, who has dominated the event throughout the past 10 years, bringing others along in her wake.
Tragically, Skolimowska has not been around to enjoy this success. In February 2009, she died suddenly after suffering a pulmonary embolism while training on Portugal&rsquo;s Algarve coast. Fittingly, Wlodarczyk won the first of her (so far) four world titles later that year in Berlin. 
<img src="https://media.aws.iaaf.org/media/Original/fb3784d5-503f-4d79-9ca6-d43646d3c5af.jpg" alt="" width="950" height="662" />
<h2>Sydney 2000: the lead-up</h2>
As noted already, Skolimowska was not a gold medal fancy coming into Sydney 2000, but she was clearly an athlete of promise, a young thrower in an even younger event. She became European U20 champion at the age of 14, world U18 champion and a World Championships representative at 16.
Nonetheless, Skolimowska was not ranked in the likely top 10 in Track &amp; Field News&rsquo; preview, possibly reflecting her youth and her DNQ in Seville. Some impressive performances may have just missed the publishing deadline, too. Skolimowska threw a world U20 record of 70.66m in late August and defeated one of the medal favourites, Kirsten Munchow, just a week before the Games.
Still, even with Skolimowska coming to Sydney in the best form of her brief career, Melinte and Kuzenkova had more than four metres on her on that year&rsquo;s world list and boasted the year&rsquo;s 10 best throws between them. France&rsquo;s Manuela Montebrun was third on the list at 71.18m with Skolimowska fourth.
<h2>Sydney 2000: the competition</h2>
Kamila Skolimowska was ready to throw her best when the Olympic competition began. In pulling off an upset, though, it helps if things fall your way. She took care of what she could control, throwing 66.30m in the first qualifying pool behind Kuzenkova&rsquo;s overall lead of 70.60m.
Then things started to happen. Melinte had warmed up with the others in the second pool but no sooner had the throwers entered the stadium than she was belatedly informed of an earlier doping infraction and escorted back out. The Romanian team had been advised but the information had not been passed on to Melinte.
When throwing did get under way, Montebrun, who had thrown 71.18m in France three weeks earlier, could manage no farther than 57.77m. Suddenly two of the top four throwers for the year were out of contention.
Australia&rsquo;s Debbie Sosimenko led for two rounds in the final two days later. Despite fervent home crowd support, however, she could not improve on her opening 67.95m and finished fifth.
Skolimowska fouled her first throw, produced a 66.33m effort in the second but then upped the ante in the third round with a world U20 record of 71.16m to take the lead. Still, Kuzenkova threatened: a throw anywhere near her season&rsquo;s best, much less her outright best, would suffice. She moved to the silver medal position with 69.64m in the third round, then improved to 69.77m with her fourth throw.
But when she most needed to step up, the Russian thrower fouled her final two attempts and the first Olympic gold medal in the women&rsquo;s hammer belonged to Skolimowska. 35 days before her 18th birthday, she was Olympic champion.
&ldquo;While you see a chance, take it,&rdquo; the song goes. Skolimowska soon affirmed the truth of the adage. At the World U20 Championships in Chile, a few weeks later, she failed to qualify for the final. The following year she was fourth at the World Championships in Edmonton, then came back to Australia for two more big wins at the Goodwill Games in Brisbane and the IAAF Grand Prix Final in Melbourne. 
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 The youngest-ever Olympic hammer champion finished fifth in defence of her title in Athens in 2004. Either side of that, she earned European silver in 2002 and European bronze in 2006. She returned to Athens in 2006 for the World Cup, winning with a PB of 75.29m. She extended her lifetime best to 76.83m in Doha in May 2007, moving to fourth on the world all-time list at that time.
At the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, in what would be her final international championships appearance, she failed to record a valid throw in the final. Her successor, Wlodarczyk, finished fourth.
<h2>London 2012: Wlodarczyk picks up the Skolimowska&rsquo;s gauntlet</h2>
With a world title and world record already to her name, Wlodarczyk went on to win the first of two Olympic gold medals in London in 2012.
Wlodarczyk also, quite literally, stepped into Skolimowska&rsquo;s shoes and put her fate in her late teammate&rsquo;s hands. As reported by Jon Mulkeen and Marta Mikiel for World Athletics in 2014:
&ldquo;(In London) Wlodarczyk wore throwing shoes and gloves that used to belong to her old friend, given to her by Skolimowska&rsquo;s family.
&ldquo;&rsquo;When I entered the Olympic stadium in London, I asked Kamila to be with me,&rsquo; said Wlodarczyk, whose original silver medal at those Games was upgraded to gold with the eventual disqualification of Tatyana Lysenko.
&ldquo;I won the medal thanks to her and I dedicated it to her.&rdquo;
Four years later, Wlodarczyk retained her title at the Rio 2016 Games, spectacularly crowning one of the morning sessions with a world record of 82.29m.
Len Johnson for World Athletics

Remembering Kamila Skolimoska, the first Olympic women's hammer throw champion, on the anniversary of her historic victory at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.

Twenty years after her Olympic triumph, Skolimowska's legacy lives on

Alexandra Tavernier broke the French record in the hammer to highlight the Kladno Throws and Kladno Memorials, a World Athletics Continental Tour Bronze meeting in Kladno, Czech Republic, on Wednesday (16).
Dominating the competition, the 26-year-old 2015 world bronze medallist reached 75.24m in the fourth round to take down the national record of 74.94m she set in July. Tavernier followed up with 75.12m and 74.71m efforts in rounds five and six to piece together the finest series of her career.&nbsp;
Action in the throws figured prominently in the late afternoon action.
Two-time Olympic javelin champion Barbora Spotakova threw a meeting record of 64.34m in the first round to claim her fourth victory in five competitions this season. Her compatriot Nikola Ogrodnikova was second with 62.22m, to edge Elina Tzengo of Greece by a lone centimetre.
Christos Frantzeskakis of Greece won the men's hammer with 75.92m ahead of Hungary's 2012 Olympic champion Krisztian Pars who reached 73.28m. Tavernier's younger brother Hugo was third with a 72.28m personal best.
Gatis Cakss of Latvia won the men's javelin with 82.19m, Colombia's Mauricio Ortega the discus with 63.61m and Czech Tomas Stanek the shot put with 20.19m.
On the track, Egyptian 100m and 200m record-holder Bassant Hemida took the sprint double, winning the 100m in 11.23 and 200m in 22.91, the performance in the shorter dash clipping 0.08 from the 100m national standard she set in Rabat last year. Both were also meeting records.&nbsp;
Isabelle Boffey of Great Britain won the 800m in 2:01.88, a personal best, with Finland's Sara Kuivisto second in 2:02.28.
Bob Ramsak for World Athletics

Alexandra Tavernier broke the French record in the hammer to highlight the Kladno Throws and Kladno Memorials, a World Athletics Continental Tour Bronze meeting in Kladno, Czech Republic, on Wednesday (16).

Tavernier breaks French hammer record in Kladno

Today marks the anniversaries of three very significant historic world records which were all set in 1960 in Walnut, California.
&lsquo;The Glorious Twelfth&rsquo; of August, the traditional date in the UK for the start of the grouse shooting season, in 1960 saw three men hit the ultimate target of a world record in their events during the USA&rsquo;s Olympic team final test meet before the Rome Olympic Games.
In Walnut, Ralph Boston surpassed Jesse Owens&rsquo; 25-year-old long jump mark, Bill Nieder became the world&rsquo;s first 20-metre shot putter and Hal Connolly let fly the first hammer to land 70 metres or beyond.
Here is how the evening panned out&hellip;
<h3> 18:55 Hammer throw</h3>
Hal Connolly had been hammer world record-holder since a similar Olympic test event in Los Angeles on 2 November 1956 when he threw 68.54m to improve the world mark of Mikhail Krivonosov by more than a metre. At the end of the month in Melbourne 1956, Connolly beat the Belarussian Soviet to the Olympic title. Connolly most famously came away with a prize greater than gold from those Games, meeting, falling in love with and, three months later, marrying Czech Olga Fikotova, the Olympic discus champion.
<img src="https://media.aws.iaaf.org/media/LargeL/7fa1ca08-c2a5-4119-a1e7-f1d8fc8c7a13.jpg?cachebuster=c316aa79-d51c-4081-8287-3336af91a41a" alt="Hel Connolly (Getty Images)" width="600" height="400" />
Two years later Connolly had improved his world record to 68.68m and it was this distance which he smashed in Walnut on 12 August. In the first round he came 10 centimetres close to the record and two attempts later blasted out his 7.26kg implement to 70.33m.
While Connolly finished eighth at the Olympic Games in Rome and sixth four years later in Tokyo, he continued to improve and hold the world record until September 1965 when it was beaten by Hungary&rsquo;s Gyula Zsiv&oacute;tzky. Connolly&rsquo;s world record was by then 71.26m set in June that year in the same lucky circle in Walnut.
<h3> 19:45 Long jump</h3>
Jesse Owens long jumped 8.13m (1.5m/s) in Ann Arbor on 15 April 1935 to become the world&rsquo;s first eight-metre jumper. He took only one jump in the competition, part of his legendary and unmatched 45-minute world record spree in which he set or equalled six world records.
Would even Owens, who didn&rsquo;t particularly care for the long jump and rarely practised it, have imagined that by the beginning of 1960, no one would have surpassed his mark?
Owens&rsquo; 8.13m, like Bob Beamon&rsquo;s 8.90m and now increasingly Mike Powell&rsquo;s current 8.95m world record, took on a mystic aura. There were similarities with the four-minute mile, a psychological as much as a physical barrier.
<img src="https://media.aws.iaaf.org/media/LargeL/c500ecea-ed1a-4989-ac16-922f4f3817aa.jpg?cachebuster=321686e0-cc4d-4bc6-b98f-90d7435f9e21" alt="Ralph Boston (Getty Images)" width="600" height="400" />
On 12 August 1960, going by the bare results, Ralph Boston&rsquo;s competition does not seem to have begun with a lot of promise as a 6.96m leap was recorded in the first round. But statistics can be deceiving; Boston had fallen back on a jump of 8.18m. When 7.94m on his second attempt was followed by 8.07m and 7.96m, it was clear to all that Boston was in form. His fourth-round leap of 8.21m (0.0m/s) sealed Boston&rsquo;s place in history, perhaps more than winning the Olympic gold medal (8.12m) the following month in Rome.
&ldquo;I thought I had gone over 26 feet (7.9248m) but I didn&rsquo;t think it was that far,&rdquo; was Boston&rsquo;s comment about his record jump.
Boston was to improve the world record another five times in his career, ending with a best of 8.35m in Modesto in 1965. He took silver behind Lynn Davies when defending his Olympic title in Tokyo in 1964, and in 1968 took bronze in the wake of Beamon&rsquo;s equally historic world record moment in Mexico City.
<h3> 20:00 Shot put</h3>
In a century of shot putting which was largely dominated by US athletes, the 1950s and 1960s could be argued to have been a golden era. Bill Neider, at the turn of those two decades, was at the forefront. Silver behind Perry O&rsquo;Brien at the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games, Neider was to go one place better in Rome at the end of August 1960.
However, it looked at one point in 1960 that Neider would not even make the Olympic team. At the USA Olympic Trials, despite having recaptured the world record from Dallas Long with 19.99m on 2 April, Neider could only place fourth. It was only after the trials third-place finisher Dave Davis suffered a wrist injury, and Neider&rsquo;s performance on 12 August, that he got the final spot on the team.
When Nieder&rsquo;s fourth-round put in Walnut rocketed out to 20.06m, it really was a &lsquo;Glorious Twelfth&rsquo; of August for the University of Kansas graduate, who in the process set his third and final career world record.
<img src="https://media.aws.iaaf.org/media/LargeL/e0a71b60-c727-41d3-a0f7-932de3c0cce4.jpg?cachebuster=f9187f8b-1b00-4b0b-b198-94f18bf4e764" alt="Bill Nieder" width="600" height="400" />
It was widely reported shortly before the 1960 Rome Olympic Games that Nieder had a practise put of 20.44m in training.
In the final, Neider continued a close and vehement rivalry with O&rsquo;Brien, his Olympic record of 19.68m defeating the defending champion.
&ldquo;We carried on quite a duel,&rdquo; said Nieder later, &ldquo;and no, it wasn&rsquo;t just for fun.&rdquo;
<h3> And 'That's not all folks'!</h3>
The record-setting spree in Walnut on 12 August 1960 didn&rsquo;t quite finish with the shot put. Later that evening, at 21:40, Richard &lsquo;Rink&rsquo; Babka equalled the world discus record. His throw of 59.91m tied the mark that had been set one year prior by Poland&rsquo;s Edmund Piatkowski.
Babka went on to take the silver medal at the Olympic Games later that year, beaten only by the great Al Oerter. Babka&rsquo;s record mark was beaten one year later, and although he never regained the world record, he went on to set a lifetime best of 63.93m in 1968.
Finally, in the very last event of the evening, the men's mile relay (4x440 yards), a USA 'A' quartet anchored by Jack Yerman with a time of 3:05.6 took just under 2 seconds off the world record (3:07.3 / 1956), also set by USA. The USA 'B' line-up, brought home by Glenn Davis, were below the old mark too with 3:06.1.
<h3> Also on this day...</h3>
On this day of extraordinary world record milestones, several other historic marks have been set
1933: on a straight 200m track in Budapest, USA&rsquo;s Ralph Metcalfe produced a 200m world record-equalling run of 20.6.
1933: Also, in Budapest, USA's John Morriss with 14.4 equalled the world record for 110m hurdles.
1949: Belgium&rsquo;s Gaston Reiff became the first man to cover 3000m within eight minutes, clocking a world record of 7:58.8 in Gavle.
1972: a US quartet in Champaign set a world record for the 4x440 yards (4x402.336m) of 3:33.9.
1975: John Walker became the first athlete to run the mile in under 3:50. With his 3:49.4 run in Gothenburg, the Kiwi took just over one and half seconds off Filbert Bayi&rsquo;s world record set just three months earlier.
1987: In Viareggio, not only did Italy&rsquo;s Alessandro Andrei add 27 centimetres to Udo Beyer&rsquo;s 22.64m shot put world record (1986), he did so with three records in the same competition: 22.72m (third round), 22.84m (fourth) and 22.91m (fifth).
Chris Turner for World Athletics Heritage
with special thanks to Track &amp; Field News for pointing out the 4x440yds record.

Today marks the anniversaries of three very significant historic world records which were all set in 1960 in Walnut, California.

The glorious twelfth – a day of world record landmarks

World 100m champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Olympic champion Elaine Thompson-Herah both continued their good form at the fourth Velocity Fest meeting in Kingston, Jamaica.
Following an 11.28 (-2.7m/s) run in the heats, Fraser-Pryce clocked 10.87 (1.4m/s) in the second round to jump to the top of this year&rsquo;s world list. Just minutes later, Thompson-Herah came close to matching that time as she sped to 10.88 (0.3m/s) to win her race. 
<iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/OhJeIuF4dqg" width="500" height="280" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
 World silver medallists Fedrick Dacres and Shanieka Ricketts were also in action in the Jamaican capital. Dacres won the men&rsquo;s discus with 64.45m, while Ricketts won the women&rsquo;s triple jump with 14.21m.
The fifth Velocity Fest meeting will be held on Sunday (9) with Fraser-Pryce and Thompson-Herah both entered for the 200m.
<h3> Poland&rsquo;s leading throwers out in force in Spala</h3>
Many of Poland&rsquo;s top athletes were in action at the Skolimowska Throws Festival in Spala on Saturday (8) as four-time world champion Pawel Fajdek and European champion Wojciech Nowicki renewed their rivalry in the hammer.
Theirs is one of the longest and most hotly contested domestic rivalries within the sport, dating back to their teenage years. While Fajdek leads in their career head-to-head record, Nowicki has levelled the score in recent years. Since the start of 2018, Nowicki has won 11 of their 24 clashes, including the 2018 European Championships.
But while Nowicki ended 2019 as the world leader, Fajdek successfully defended his world title and won eight of their 12 duels.
Both men opened their 2020 campaigns today in Spala and Nowicki came out on top, winning with 78.50m. He led from the outset, opening with 77.08m before sending his next five efforts beyond 78 metres. Any of his throws would have been enough to win as Fajdek finished second with a solid 76.77m.
In the U20 men&rsquo;s competition, Dawid Pilat added almost a metre to the Polish U20 record he set in June with the 6kg implement, throwing 76.55m.
The women&rsquo;s hammer was of a similar high standard. 2017 world bronze medallist Malwina Kopron threw 74.18m to comfortably beat World University Games bronze medallist Katarzyna Furmanek (70.74m) and world silver medallist Joanna Fiodorow (66.28m).
Elsewhere, Michal Haratyk won the men&rsquo;s shot put from Konrad Bukowiecki, 21.45m to 20.36m, while 2015 world champion Piotr Malachowski won a close discus contest from Robert Urbanek, 64.87m to 64.73m. In her first competition of the year, Polish record-holder Maria Andrejczyk won the javelin with 62.04m.
<h3> Dongmo extends Portuguese record, Ehammer's breakthrough continues</h3>
On a busy weekend of national championships across Europe, there were some notable marks in Portugal, Switzerland and Germany.
On the first day of action at the Portuguese Championships in Lisbon, Auriol Dongmo added another 26 centimetres to the national shot put record she set in June. Her winning heave of 19.53m is the best throw in the world so far this year.
<img src="https://media.aws.iaaf.org/media/LargeL/829fd309-b5f3-4f64-9773-8ab33228a8db.jpg?cachebuster=d3a00c46-271b-4507-a7fc-b0e0adb56526" alt="Auriol Dongmo" width="600" height="400" />
Three women jumped beyond 14 metres in the triple jump, and in a close contest just 16 centimetres separated the top three competitors. Patricia Mamona won with 14.26m (2.0m/s) with Evelise Veiga taking second place with a wind-assisted 14.16m and Susana Costa placing third (14.10m).
World silver medallist Joao Vieira won the men&rsquo;s 3000m race walk in 11:45.85, while Ana Cabecinha took the women&rsquo;s title in 12:43.01.
At the Swiss Combined Events Championships in Langenthal, Simon Ehammer continued his impressive breakthrough into the senior ranks. Having already surpassed eight metres in the long jump and 8000 points in the decathlon this year, he added more than 200 points to his PB to win the decathlon title.
With big PBs in the 100m (10.50), shot put (13.75m) and 400m (47.27), he was on pace for a big score from the outset. His momentum continued throughout the second day as the 20-year-old recorded three more PBs, including 13.73 in the 110m hurdles, and he ended his competition with a lifetime best of 8231, the best score in the world this year and just 103 points shy of the Swiss record set 37 years ago.
Annik Kalin, also just 20 years of age, won the heptathlon title with 6167, just three points shy of the PB she set last month.
At the German Championships in Brunswick, 2017 world champion Johannes Vetter won the men's javelin by more than 10 metres, topping the contest with 87.36m. European silver medallist Andreas Hofmann was a distant second with 77.35m.
Competing off a shortened approach and jumping into a headwind in what was her first outdoor long jump competition of 2020, world champion Malaika Mihambo won the long jump with 6.71m (-1.2m/s).
Deniz Almas backed up his recent 100m PB. One week after clocking 10.08 on Weinheim&rsquo;s fast track, the 23-year-old ran 10.09 (0.1m/s) in Brunswick to add the national 100m crown to the 60m title he won indoors in February.
The other highlight from the first day of action came from European champion Christin Hussong, who won the women&rsquo;s javelin with 63.93m.
At the Lithuanian Championships in Palanga, 2017 world champion Andrius Gudzius dominated the discus with 68.16m. Edis Matusevicius won the men&rsquo;s javelin with 81.38m and Dovile Kilty took the women&rsquo;s triple jump title with 14.18m (1.2m/s).
Jon Mulkeen for World Athletics

Many of Poland’s top athletes were in action at the Skolimowska Throws Festival in Spala on Saturday (8) as four-time world champion Pawel Fajdek and European champion Wojciech Nowicki renewed their rivalry in the hammer.