Ryan Whiting (© Getty Images)
The 86th Kansas Relays in Lawrence, USA, began for third time with a special Shot Put competition but this year, because of bad weather concerns, it was held indoors and USA’s Ryan Whiting reached 21.65m on Wednesday (17).
The 2012 IAAF World Indoor Championships gold medallist had to come from behind in the last round at the Douglas County Fairgrounds in order to win an outstanding competition that saw three men go over 21 metres.
Justin Rodhe improved his absolute best by one centimetre to 21.12m in the second round to take the lead, but the Canadian was not able to improve further and he had to settle for third place, just as he had done in Lawrence 12 months ago when he produced his previous best mark.
Whiting then sent his implement out to 21.20m in the third round but saw his compatriot and regular rival Reese Hoffa reach 21.60m with his fifth effort. His immediate response was 21.36m but Whiting then mustered all his resources and found a winning effort of 21.65m in the last round.
In a high quality competition, USA’s Cory Martin found only 20.32m good enough for fourth place. USA’s 2009 World champion Christian Cantwell only had one valid throw at 18.24m and finished eighth after passing his last three attempts.
“It feels great,” Whiting told the event website. “I don‘t get to do that to (Hoffa) very much. He's done that to me a lot (come from behind to win), so I kind of turned the tables on him and saw how he liked it.”
The leading pair meet again next week at the Drake Relays in Des Moines.
A correspondent for the IAAF
