Dilshod Nazarov of Tajikistan celebrates his win in the hammer (© Getty Images)
The Karlstad stop of the IAAF Hammer Throw Challenge tour on Wednesday (16) provided brilliant conditions with blue skies, warmth, sun and an enthusiastic crowd. The throwers responded well as all of them improved upon their challenge scores to strengthen or improve their positions in the standings.
Tajikistan’s Dilshod Nazarov lived up to his status as favourite, effectively sealing the victory with his second-round throw of 79.62m, consolidating his second place overall in the challenge. The 32-year-old rounded out his series with three more throws farther than 77 meters.
Slovakia’s Marcel Lomnicky demonstrated impressive consistency by having all of his five legal throws land between 76.56m and 77.93m. But his second place in the competition was still challenged as Finland’s David Soderberg improved his season’s best by one-and-a-half metres to 77.57m.
In the overall standings in the IAAF Hammer Throw Challenge, Nazarov and Lomnicky strengthened their positions in second and fourth respectively while Poland’s Szymon Ziolkowksi and Russia’s Sergey Litvinov moved up to seventh and ninth. But it should be noted that Soderberg still has only two marks – 76.05m and 77.57m – and thus could move up considerably if or when he scores a third one.
Japan’s Ryohei Arai achieved the major surprise of the evening as he won the javelin ahead of world champion Vitezslav Vesely, 82.24m to 81.36m. Vesely barely got second as it was only in his last attempt that he managed to surpass the 81.03m mark by Uzbekistan’s Ivan Zaytsev.
Britain’s Rabah Yousif and Barbados’s Ramon Gittens were two impressive winners. Yousif clocked 45.67 in the 400m to win by almost a second over Danish record-holder Nick Ekelund-Arenander, while Gittens – in his 15th 100m competition this year – ran 10.21 to win the 100m by two meters.
For Swedish fans, long jumper Michel Torneus and middle-distance runner Charlotta Fougberg provided the major highlights.
Torneus flew out to his longest leap so far this summer – 8.10m (2.5m/s) – before passing his last attempts to save energy for his next competition, the IAAF Diamond League meeting in Monaco in just two days.
Fougberg, fresh from setting a national 3000m steeplechase record of 9:23.96 at the IAAF Diamond League meeting in Glasgow, this evening stepped down to the 1500m. She decided to just follow the specialists from start, but that didn’t stop her from winning. Coming off the last bend, Fougberg swept wide into to the lead to win in a personal best of 4:11.89.
A Lennart Julin for the IAAF
