The Italian shot putters have always been more or less present on the international scene of the event . Alessandro ANDREI was so far the most famous of them after he hold the world record for some time in 1987 with 22.91m , missing by only 9cm to become the first thrower ever over 23m. Then the Italians managed quite well the move toward the rotational technique with Paolo DAL SOGLIO being one of the pioneer of this technique . It happened that Alessandro was the model of young Leonardo FABBRI who was born in the same city, Florence, and that DAL SOGLIO is now his coach. So all stays more or less ”inside the family” !

The most interesting with FABBRI is not that in spite of his respectable size (1.98m) , he is obviously able to move relatively easily inside the small circle, but the way it does it ,which is quite different from the majority of the world best throwers who are more or less copying the American approach of the event. ”The ”famous” stronger the better and rotation at all costs” philosophy !   Most of the big guys are super strong , squatting well over 300kg and benching 250kg +  but they don’t use much their legs and hardly their arm and often give the feeling that the shot is rather ”escaping” them than being fully thrown. Much of the big strength is wasted and used to move the big bodies but producing much speed or not transferred into the implement.

FABBRI is probably not as strong as these guys , but to throw nearly 23m , he must do something good (or better) and we think that it is all about the right-left landing , the much better use of the legs and the more efficient delivery very similar to a glide delivery. Any rotational throw must somewhere finish into a linear delivery and the best way to do that is to be able to stop the rotations and transfer the forces …and for this , you need a solid support and blocking axis … not to be somewhere in the air and trying desperately to push into an escaping implement.

Available documents : 1- PDF 12 pages technical study FABBRI 22.95m -Specific points of his technique  2-PDF 6 pages Technical analysis visitors  3-Original video TV coverage FABBRI 22,95m.  4-(On the making) video analysis