Men's shot put
Phil Minshull for the IAAF
19 October 2000 - Rutger Smith was not feeling too confident going into the men’s shot put final after a week when he admitted that nothing had seemed to go right in training but the strapping Dutchman, the pre-competition favourite, overcame his nerves to come out on top in the best competition ever seen in his event at the World Junior Championships.
Smith led throughout the competition despite pressure exerted from three of his rivals and then, with the last throw of the competition, set a massive championship record of 19.48.
"Now I want gold as well in the discus," said the 1999 European junior champion in both disciplines.
Smith also improved his own three-month old personal best and the Dutch junior record by 16 centimetres.
For the first time ever at the World Juniors, four men threw 19 metres or further.
Second place went to Russia's Ivan Yushkov, who threw 19.06 in the fifth round. Yushov can take some solace from the fact that, despite being just shy of his personal best, his effort would have won the gold at six of the previous seven editions of the championships.
Tomasz Chrzanowski unleashed a Polish national record of 19.00, also in the fifth round, and backed it up with a mark of 18.92 earlier in the competition.
The performance of Yushov and Chrzanowski in the penultimate round meant that Belarus' Pavel Lyzhin was pushed out of the medals, despite going out to 19.00 as well.
Lyzhin produced his top throw in the second round but his next-best effort was inferior to Chrzanowski's.
