This was without any doubt the best men hammer competition since a long time . You could throw 80m+ and not get a medal when , not a long time ago, this was even sufficient to win the GOLD . We were expecting another fight between Poland and USA …And it did not happen again…with Poland scoring a 4-0 against the US at the end of the 2 hammer events. We were expecting Pavel FAJDEK , if not WINKLER , but it was Wojciech NOWICKI who took over the control of the competition with his very first 81.18m throw , then tightened his grip on the Gold medal with big PB throws and a best of 82.52m . His most unexpected rival was the (near unknown) Norvegian HENRIKSEN who bombarded first first time over 80m , then took a liking about it and improved to 81.58m to finish less than 1m short of NOWICKI. Pavel FAJDEK finally got one throw right to claim the bronze for a unique Polish double . The young Ukrainian KOKHAN got no medal but is certainly the man of the future in this event . The French outsider Quentin Bigot fought well , close from his French record but this was only good nough that time for a finalist spot . A much less glorious finalist spot for the American Rudy WINKLER completely out of the loop ,finishing only 7th with a poor 77m+ . Well done the Polish hammer school , clear world leader in this event .Available documents ; 1- Vid 1 Wojciech NOWICKI 81,18m -81,72m-82,52m-81,39m-82,06m-X –2- Vid 2 Eivind HENRIKSEN 79.18m-79.06m-80.31m-77.78m-81.58m-80.02m -3-Vid 3 Pavel FAJDEK 77.58m-78.58m-78.83m-78.04m-81.53m-79.68m 4-Vid 4 Mykhaylo KOKHAN 77.91m-80.39m-X-79.79m-78.81m-77.52m -5- Vid 5 Quentin BIGOT 77.93m-79.39m-78.30m-78.84m-X-75.78m -6-Vid 6 Nick MILLER 77.88m-X-77.46m-77.64m-X-78.15m

Behind WINKLER who had to satisfy to lead the second part of the field , the performance level was also quite high with ALL the 12 finalists throwing over 75m . The battle to get in the top 8 was uncertain until the last throw of the first three rounds with everybody having a chance to make it. At the it was the russian PRONKIN whot made it by only 1cm over the APAK from Turquei . That also eliminate the 2nd american Daniel HAUGH , finishing only 11th , 3m down from his close to 80m PB . Curious to see that no German and no Hungarian thrower did make it through the qualifications . Available documents : 1- Vid 1 7e Rudy WINKLER 77.08m-X-75.95m-X-75.34m-X -2- Vid 2 8e Valeriy PRONKIN 76.72m–X-X-X-75.97m-74.73m-3-Vid 3 9e Esref APAK 76.22m-76.71m-74.28m-4- Vid 4 10e Javier CIENFUEGOS 74.62m-X-76.30m -5- Vid 5 11e Daniel HAUGH X-76.22m-X- -6- Vid 6 12e Serghei MARGHIEV 73.28m-75.24m-74.95m