Primož Kozmus becomes Slovenia's first Olympic athletics gold medallist (© Getty Images)
Despite some early season injury setbacks, Olympic Hammer Throw champion Primož Kozmus believes things are back on track after his first 80m throw of the season.
“Besides a few brief “escapes”, I was stuck at Bjelolasica, the Croatian Olympic Center, for the whole month.
“There's probably a nicer expression that I could use for this rather than being stuck, but being in this small, remote place, literally in the middle of nowhere for a few months, leaves one almost with a feeling that he's been put in a quarantine for having a dangerous, contagious disease and needs to be isolated. Apart from a hotel, the training facilities, us athletes and the forest surrounding everything around it, you can't find much more here. Of course describing it like this is a bit of an exaggeration and I’m saying it as a joke, since after all, nobody forces me to train there, it's my free choice. And like it or not, it is really the best way of concentrating on one goal without the temptations of “civilisation” and focusing my head and body on ‘the’ competition of the year – the Berlin World championship.
“The title of the World champion is the one missing in my collection of medals. In Paris I finished fifth and then in 2007 my fairytale began by becoming the silver medallist, It might seem that in the absence of my biggest rivals of recent years, the Belarus competitors Tikhon and Deviatovskiy, my work in the hammer ring should be much easier this year. But there are unfortunately plenty of reasons that this is not so.
“Since some injuries prevented me from starting my training season as planned, I still haven't reached my best shape. According to calculations of my team, this should happen in Berlin. My last performance in Maribor in the Slovenian national championship was very promising. Finally I managed to throw over 80m which means I now own the third best result of the season.
“This year – in contradiction to only few performances I had outside the borders of my country – I participated at quite a lot of domestic competitions. This I must say, was very rewarding, as it was a real pleasure and honour at the same time, to watch the stands of the stadiums being full of athletic and other sport fans, which I cannot remember happening before. My discipline was also always scheduled as a central event, which is also a tremendous achievement if I try to compare it with the situation of only a few years ago, when hammer throwers needed to settle with competing outside of the stadiums and finishing our competition before the “real” meetings even started.
“Another very positive fact for the future of the hammer throw in Slovenia is also that my younger club colleague, Barbara Špiler, has won the recent World Youth Championship in Bressanone. So the future for now seems bright and hopefully my fans will continue cheering for her once my career comes to an end.
“But there's much work to do before that. The next step on the way will happen exactly one year after Beijing. The dates of the Berlin hammer throw qualifications and finals (15 and 17 August) happen to coincide with the Beijing hammer throw competitions. Hopefully these numbers will bring me luck. Why not? In fact, they already did once.
“Držite pesti (keep your fingers crossed)!
Primož
“Besides a few brief “escapes”, I was stuck at Bjelolasica, the Croatian Olympic Center, for the whole month.
“There's probably a nicer expression that I could use for this rather than being stuck, but being in this small, remote place, literally in the middle of nowhere for a few months, leaves one almost with a feeling that he's been put in a quarantine for having a dangerous, contagious disease and needs to be isolated. Apart from a hotel, the training facilities, us athletes and the forest surrounding everything around it, you can't find much more here. Of course describing it like this is a bit of an exaggeration and I’m saying it as a joke, since after all, nobody forces me to train there, it's my free choice. And like it or not, it is really the best way of concentrating on one goal without the temptations of “civilisation” and focusing my head and body on ‘the’ competition of the year – the Berlin World championship.
“The title of the World champion is the one missing in my collection of medals. In Paris I finished fifth and then in 2007 my fairytale began by becoming the silver medallist, It might seem that in the absence of my biggest rivals of recent years, the Belarus competitors Tikhon and Deviatovskiy, my work in the hammer ring should be much easier this year. But there are unfortunately plenty of reasons that this is not so.
“Since some injuries prevented me from starting my training season as planned, I still haven't reached my best shape. According to calculations of my team, this should happen in Berlin. My last performance in Maribor in the Slovenian national championship was very promising. Finally I managed to throw over 80m which means I now own the third best result of the season.
“This year – in contradiction to only few performances I had outside the borders of my country – I participated at quite a lot of domestic competitions. This I must say, was very rewarding, as it was a real pleasure and honour at the same time, to watch the stands of the stadiums being full of athletic and other sport fans, which I cannot remember happening before. My discipline was also always scheduled as a central event, which is also a tremendous achievement if I try to compare it with the situation of only a few years ago, when hammer throwers needed to settle with competing outside of the stadiums and finishing our competition before the “real” meetings even started.
“Another very positive fact for the future of the hammer throw in Slovenia is also that my younger club colleague, Barbara Špiler, has won the recent World Youth Championship in Bressanone. So the future for now seems bright and hopefully my fans will continue cheering for her once my career comes to an end.
“But there's much work to do before that. The next step on the way will happen exactly one year after Beijing. The dates of the Berlin hammer throw qualifications and finals (15 and 17 August) happen to coincide with the Beijing hammer throw competitions. Hopefully these numbers will bring me luck. Why not? In fact, they already did once.
“Držite pesti (keep your fingers crossed)!
Primož
