ZELEZNY - Farewell to a legend - World Athletics Final

It is meant as no disrespect to the top three men in the Javelin Throw today just to describe this competition in one paragraph. Norway’s Olympic champion Andreas Thorkildsen won with 89.50m, his opener, Tero Pitkämäki of Finland, last year’s winner, took second with a last round 88.25m, while third place went to Germany’s Peter Esenwein (85.30m, his season’s best).

Whatever these three athletes go on to achieve, we can say without serious contradiction that today was about just one ‘happening’, the major stage exit of an athletic legend.

Jan Zelezny - who is still set to make a farewell appearance in Asia and at home in the Czech Republic - bid farewell to a major international competition in the stadium where it all began for him at the 1986 European Championships (75.90m 18th qualification), and where he secured the first of his three World crowns at the 1993 World Championships in Athletics.

As he leaves our sport, the World record holder’s stats say it all. The average of his 100 best throws is more than 90m, and he has established a total of five World records, including the current mark of 98.48m (1996).

In men’s Javelin Throwing history, we talk about Matti Järvinen, Janis Lusis, Steve Backley, all great champions and World record breakers but even spoken in the same breath as this company Zelezny remains peerless.

And how did Zelezny bow out today?

81.61m for sixth place. Not bad for a 40-year-old!

And what will Zelezny miss the most about finishing his career?

"What I'll miss the most is the feeling of walking into a stadium. You feel all the tension and the expectation."