Hungary’s Horváth sets
Championships record at first attempt in qualification
IAAF
14 July 2001 – Debrecen, Hungary - On
the third day of the IAAF/Westel World Youth Championships in Athletics, Hungary’s
strongest medal hope took the stage and set a new championships record in his first
qualification round attempt!
József Horváth threw his hammer 77.72 metres to better by nearly three metres the 74.76m mark set by his compatriot Krisztián Pars in Bydgoszcz two years ago, when Horváth himself finished in 7th place (when 15 years old!) with 69.15.
In the men’s javelin qualifiers, 7 athletes achieved the automatic qualification mark of 61.00m and a further five athletes passed through to the final as the best performers not achieving the standard. Qatari athlete Hamad Khalifa achieved a personal best to head the qualifying athletes with 71.86 metres with his first attempt.
With the morning session devoted to qualification heats and semis, the United States stood out in both of the medley relays. The events are run in four legs of 100m, 200m, 300m and 400m and the USA were convincing winners of both the men’s and women’s series.
In the men’s relay they headed Poland on time by just under half a second, clocking 1:52.70 to the Polish team’s 1:53.16, third fastest qualifiers were South Africa with 1:53.71.
The USA showed even more strongly in the women’s event, with a time of 2:09.36 placing them ahead of the Ukraine (2:10.54) and Romania (2:10.94). Bar some minor hesitations in the exchanges, the US team ran a near faultless race, led off by Asley Lodree and Allyson Felix –the winner of the women’s 100m final yesterday, and followed by Angel Perkins and Stephanie Smith, who ran a superb anchor leg.
This afternoon’s competition will include no less than 14 finals.
