Ivan Tikhon wins World Hammer Throw Final 2005 (© IAAF)
SzombathelyBelarus’ Ivan Tikhon continued his season’s successes with victory at the Hammer Throw Final here this afternoon, whilst Cuba’s Yipsi Moreno won the women’s event convincingly to defeat World champion Olga Kuzenkova.
Moreno takes the women's competition
Moreno became the first winner of the 2005 World Athletics Final as she dominated the women’s competition, with Kuzenkova relegated to third place by Poland’s 2000 Olympic champion Kamilla Skolimowska.
Kuzenkova had opened her competition strongly, going straight into the lead with her opening throw of 72.19 metres, narrowly advancing the Cuban who produced a first round effort of 72.11. Then Moreno took over the lead in round 2 with a throw of 72.64.
She fouled in round three and this time it was Skolimowska who took the reins, producing her best throw of the competition with 72.73 metres.
With Moreno then fouling twice, it looked for a while as though Skolimowska might well win the day, as Kuzenkova failed to improve on her earlier performance; but Moreno got it right with her fifth throw, producing the winning distance of 74.75, just under half a metre short of her season’s best of 75.18 and a new record for the Szombathely stadium.
It was a relief for Moreno after two defeats by Kuzenkova: "I am very glad to have beaten Kuzenkova, after losing in the Olympic and World Championships finals. I was worried that I will start a streak of silver medals, as that is all I have been doing recently. I am happy with the result, as I barely missed my personal best by 20 centimeters from a week ago,” she said, celebrating her victory.
Skolimowska coming back
Pulling out all the stops, Skolimowska fouled her last two throws, whilst Kuzenkova improved to 72.46 with her last throw to push out Tatyana Lysenko, the world record holder, who had her best effort in round five with 72.34. For the Pole, too, this was a happy result:
“I am very pleased with this second place, as I have not had the opportunity to stand on the podium in recent competitions. Although I did not match my season’s best, I still think that I am on the right path after a few years of being out of shape.”
Kuzenkova winning streak comes to an end
The World Champion was less content with herself after failing to repeat her win here last year and also beinging to an end a long winning streak: “I am disappointed that I could not win, a long streak came to an end today. I won Athens and the World Athletics Final last year, then I won the World Championships this year.
"I did not throw badly, but everybody was in good shape today and 72 metres was only good enough for third place.”
Karjalainen no match for Tikhon
Olli-Pekka Karjalainen, who won the competition here last year, opened well this afternoon, with 78.77, exactly the same distance that he was to achieve with his last throw too. But the Helsinki World champion Tikhon was having none of this and threw his implement out to 81.70 metres with his second attempt to become the first and only contender to go over 80 metres.
He crossed the 80 metre line twice more in the competition, but neither throw improved on his earlier mark, a result that disappointed him a little: “Obviously I wanted to throw farther, I was even hoping for a world record, and I am still upset about missing it earlier with a single centimeter. I doubt it I can break it this year, but the most important is that I won in Helsinki and Szombathely.”
A good fifth round throw from Karjalainen took the Finn close to the line with 79.81 and this was sufficient to guarantee him the second place on the podium. "I am disappointed that I could not defend my title," he said afterwards, " but that was all I could manage this time around. I was even more worried that I could not get over 80 meters, I really thought that now at the end of the season I could do it – but I still could not get my movement right.”
Belarusian Vadim Devyatovskiy came in third with his penultimate attempt when he hurled his implement out to 78.98 to close out local favourite Krisztian Pars, but he was not satisfied with his performance either: “I am very disappointed no to throw over 80 meters today. My leg kept stopping on my fourth spin, probably because I was very tired.
"It has been a really long season, as I have been competing since February. Despite this I had my best season ever. I won the World University Games and was still competing at the beginning of this week in Banska Bystrica, Slovakia.”
Pars managed a best throw in the same round with 78.32, thus bettering Poland’s Simon Ziolkowski with 77.49.
