Virgilijus Alekna competing at the 2006 World Cup (© Getty Images)
Eight of the top ten performances of the 2008 season have been provided by the Baltic duo of 2007 World champion Gerd Kanter of Estonia, and reigning two-time Olympic champion Virgilijus Alekna of Lithuania.
Business as usual?
Well, not quite as a young Iranian, already with a proven global CV at junior level is threatening to upset the largely European dominated leadership of the event.
Ehsan Hadadi, 23, the 2004 World Junior champion, who was seventh at the 2007 World champs has thrown the gauntlet down in front of the European hierarchy of the event this season.
Three competitions - 68.52 Hengelo, 24 May; 69.12 Berlin, 1 June; 69.32 Tallinn, 3 June - have produced an improvement to his Asian record. In Hengelo and Berlin he defeated Kanter, 29, and Alekna, 36, while in the formers’ home meet in Tallinn he only faced the World champion who he again bettered.
Hadadi’s victory in Tallinn on 3 June was his last competition prior to Beijing, as he took the decision instead to return to Minsk in Belarussia where he is coached by a Russian, and to concentrate solely on the Olympics.
Mario Pestano blasted out a new national record of 69.50m at the Spanish championships in Santa Cruz de Tenerife on 27 July and so rests just 18cm ahead of the Iranian in third place on the world season’s list. The 30-year-old has had a run of seven 66.50m+ victories since he was among the top names defeated (into fifth place) in Berlin by Hadadi. There is also another strong Spaniard Yennifer Frank Casañas (67.91) in the Olympic entry.
Alekna was held back by a calf injury at the World championships last summer finishing only fourth, having won the title in 2003 and 2005, and so will be especially keen to probably close out his career with a third Olympic triumph in Beijing.
Between Alekna and Kanter in Osaka came Germany’s Robert Harting (another of those to succumb to Hadadi in Berlin) in silver, and the Netherlands’ Rutger Smith in bronze. Both men should again feature in the medal hunt once more.
The German at 23-years-old is like the Iranian a relative youngster in the terms of this event, and his 68.65m PB in Kaunas on 8 June was impressive. Smith has a year’s best of 66.85.
Ian Waltz with 68.90m at the end of May heads a strong US trio to Beijing. He finished fifth at the 2005 Worlds but didn’t even make it through to the final in 2007..
Poland’s Piotr Malachowski, 25, was a finalist in Osaka, and his national record of 68.65 on 27 July obviously signals he’s in great shape currently.
Of the Olympic silver and bronze medallists behind Alekna in 2004, both Hungarian Zoltan Kövagö (65.61) and Aleksander Tammert of Estonia (65.71) are also in reasonable shape.
Chris Turner for the IAAF
