Yuriy Sedykh speaking (© IAAF RDC Moscow)
From 57 September, 2003 a Hammer Throw Coaching Seminar was staged in Szombathely (Hungary). In the course of the Seminar the following presentations were offered to the participants:
September 5:
Prof. Anatoly Bondarchuk (Ukraine), Olympic Champion has delivered three presentations: “Long term preparation of hammer throwers”, “Comparative characteristic of the technique of the top hammer throwers of the 80-90-s of the last century and of the two latest Olympic cycles”, «Transfer of abilities in the course of long term preparation».
September 6:
- Theory session:
Pal Nemeth (Hungary): two presentations «School of hammer throwing in Szombathely – from the past to the present and further to the future», «Modern view on the preparation of hammer throwers»;
Tibor Gescek (Hungary), Winner of the World Cup, European Champion «My training experience”
Yuri Sedykh (Russia), two-fold Olympic Champion, world record holder, «Training philosophy in hammer throwing».
- Practical session:
Yuri Sedykh demonstrated a standard training programme (“Master Class”) and then the participants were able to watch the organization and staging of a competition for a large number of young athletes, held simultaneously from two sectors under the required safety measures.
September 7:
– Istvan Gyulai (Hungary), General Secretary of IAAF, Cesar Moreno Bravo (Mexico), IAAF Council Member, spoke to the participants and answered questions. Then a roundtable discussion was organized with the main issue on the agenda – how to make hammer throwing more popular and attractive for Meet organizers. It was noted that a group of experts from Hungary is conducting a special research on this subject, and the results of this research will be sent to the IAAF Technical Committee.
In the afternoon participants watched the World Athletics Final in Hammer Throw.
It is worth a special mention that a big group of hammer throwers of the past and present, including no fewer than four Olympic Champions – Harold Connolly (USA), Gula Zivotsky (Hungary), Anatoly Bondarchuk (Ukraine), Yuri Sedykh (Russia), winner of the World Cup and European Champion Tibor Gescek (Hungary), runners –up of the World Championships Zolt Nemeth (Hungary) and Koji Murofushi ( (Japan), other famous athletes Alexandr Seleznev (Russia), Jud Logan (USA), Konstantin Astapkovich (Belarus), took an active part in the Seminar.
The popularity of the lecturers and an extensive information activity on the promotion of this seminar contributed to the fact that coaches from countries not under the umbrella of the Moscow RDC (USA, Canada and Japan) took part in the seminar.
In all, 60 coaches from 29 countries attended: Armenia, Austria, Belgium, Belarus, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Finland, Great Britain, Hungary (10 persons), Italy, Ireland (3), Israel (2), Japan, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Moldova, Netherlands, Norway (2), Poland, Russia, Serbia & Montenegro (3), Slovenia, Sweden (3), Tajikistan, Turkey (3), USA (14).
Information about the seminar was published on the RDC Moscow Website as well as on the Website of IAAF.
All the participants spoke highly of the level of the Seminar and expressed their wish to continue the practice of organizing coaching seminars on the occasion of the top competitions.
