The first golden league game of the season was held in Berlin, and as usually, not much field events are there. I really don't understand, why the IAAF wants to to put events – and therefore the athletes – in different categories. They all train hard and have the same goal, but depending on the event one takes part in, predeterminetas ones incomes and competition one can take part in.
So the men javelin is the only throwing event in the golden league. Fortunately we can see many battles between the top javelin throwers and once again it seems to be head to head battle between Tero Pitkämäki and Andreas Thorkildsen. The competition started pretty even when Tero started with 85.39 and the Norse responded with 85.48 and took the lead after start. That was also the best performace for Andreas but the Finn bested for 86.53 and took a grap for the million dollar reward.
It was known before the competition, that the surface of the arena is very difficult for the throwers; they can't get good grip from the rough surface and it's very difficult for the athlete if they can't trust that their backing foot will hold. Andreas, and especially season top throw holder, Vadims Vasilevskis, were struggling with grip and didn't perform as well as expected. This might concern them since the world championships are held this year in the same arena.
1) Tero Pitkämäki Suomi 86,53 (kkk) 2) Andreas Thorkildsen Norja 85,48 3) Igor Janik Puola 83,52 4) Mark Frank Saksa 82,97 5) Vadims Vasilevskis Latvia 82,88 6) Teemu Wirkkala Suomi 82,34 7) Ainars Kovals Latvia 81,50 8) Matthias de Zordo Saksa 79,65 9) Antti Ruuskanen Suomi 77,31 10) Tero Järvenpää Suomi 76,36.
Reigning olympicand world champion Barbora Spotakova showd that she is ready for the season. The Czech beat season leading mark owner and one of her toughest rival during the last years, Christina Obergföll, who wasn't able to provide as good performance as she did a couple of weeks back. These throwers will face eachothers many time this season and I'm expecting to see tough battles since I think we didn't see best from Christina this time.
Andreas Thorkildsen shows how it's done for the Finns
Keihään juhla competition was held in Seinäjoki but it wasn't a celebration for the Finnish throwers since Andreas was clearly in a league of his own throughout the competitin. His best throw was measured 88,97 and the Norwegian wasn't even satisfied in an interview:
" The result was a little bit suprising and especially in the way I did it. Now I need to look out, why I really didn't feel like 100 %. There is still things to work out and I hope I can work them out for Berlin."
Teemu Wirkkala was second with his record throw 84,68 and Tero Pitkämäki continued his struggle with technique tossing only 82,90. Young Ari Mannio showd that his good mark thrown in Leppävirta wasn't a coinsidense by getting a result 82,78.
Season top list thusfar:
1. Vadim Vasilevski LAT 90,71 2. Andreas Thorkildsen NOR 88,97 3. Ari Mannio FIN 85,70 4. Teemu Wirkkala FIN 84,68 5. Mark Frank GER 83,86 6. Cyrus Hostetler USA 83,16 7. Park Jae-Myong KOR 83,10 8. Corey White USA 82,97 9. Tero Pitkämäki FIN 82,90 10. Eriks Rags LAT 82,23
Malachowski and Wlodarczyk setting the marks in Janusz Kusocinski Memorial
For the joy of home crowds, it was the Polish to show best throws in Varsow. Anita Wlodarczyk won tough competition with a good result 75.21. Unfortunately competition was held before international broadcast so I didn't get to see it. Women's hammer is usually the first throwing event so it doesn't get much attention in broadcasts and oddly they didn't even show a compilation of it.
1
Anita Wlodarczyk
POL
75.21
2
Martina Hrasnová
SVK
73.12
3
Kathrin Klaas
GER
70.20
4
Inna Sayenko
UKR
66.74
5
Iryna Sekachova
UKR
66.35
6
Malgorzata Zadura
POL
64.69
7
Silvia Salis
ITA
64.54
8
Katarzyna Kita
POL
64.27
9
Malwina Sobierajska
POL
61.90
Piotr Malachowski got a good victory over Virgilijus Alekna, who seems to be only a shadow of his past years appearances. The Pole did a constant performance with several throws over 65 meters. Although I expected a little more class from the competition as there were some big names, but it didn't show up for some reason. The throws were also not so impressive in the women's discus, so I guess it can be explained by the throwing circumstances.
Disclaimer: The information on this blog entry is based on internet writings, doubtful recollections and pure assumptions. Therefore this is not a valid article and if you find false information or you just know better, please let me know. Due to my Arabic skills – well I don't even know the alphabets, let alone the actual language – it is pretty hard to collect some real data. E.g. I have no idea what happened to Nahla between 2005 and 2007.
21st of november 2003 was a big day for Egyptian weightlifting. After Shang Chichun of China was disqualified for a doping offense, just 18-year-old junior Nahla Ramadan was declared winner and thus Egypt got their first world championship gold medal in a long long time. Recording 117,5 kg in snatch (new junior world record), 145 kg in clean and jerk summing up to a total of 262,5 kilos which was too much for her rivals. A new weightlifting star was born.
As often with young athletes, the person behind succes was the players father, in this case, Nahla's dad Mohamed who was a former lifter himself with several national championships on his belt. He introduced Nahla and her sister Nagham in to the world of weightlifting at a young age, but only Nahla was the one making big succes and she got into national weightlifting team in 2001. She got a Bulgarian trainer Yurden Ivanov and moved to Ras Al-Bar's training center. Results of an professional type of training started to show soon as the next year Nahla took bronze medal in 69 kilo category before taking the gold in 75's in 2003.
In Egypt where they don't have much olympic athletes – especially women – Nahla become quite known and she was one of the county's olympic hopes in Athens. This can be very difficult situation for a young athlete when one has to cope with lots of pressure and everything comes so quickly. Then it happened; being a gold medal favourite, Nahla first underperformed in snatch and failed in all of her clean and jerk attempts. She just wasn't seasoned well enough to withstand attention of 70 million people.
The real troubles started after the Olympics when there were rumours that Qatar is trying to get her to join their nation. Qatar was known for recruiting athletes from poor countries with big money which naturally sound like a good offer for an ahtlete who is from simple Alexandrian circumstances. Nahla's 180 000 LE (~ 22 600 €) Meditereanean games reward money and other bonuses she got might sound big in Egyptian standards, but considering that she's an international level athlete, it is not that much. You really can't blame an athlete for thinking a decent incomes, but she turned the offer down at that time.
After another disappointing performance in year's main event in 2005, in which Nahla placed 5th, the situation culminated as Mohamed Ramadan said that Nahlan hasn't got what she deserved and tried to blackmail more money. He came to Nahla's training camp and took her away. Federations response to this was to ban Nahla for life in 2007, file a complaint to Egypt's Attorney General in order to prevent Nahla from traveling abroad and sue her to get back money they have used to prepare her since 2005.It seemed like her lifting career was over.
The situation cleared after few twist and turns in 2008 after Nahla and her father apologised their behavior and everything they've done. Whatever happened behind the curtains, the most important was that Nahla and her fellow sufferer Esmat Mansour El Sayed were eglible to compete again. Nahla was meant to take part in Eleiko GP, but you can't see her name on the score sheet. I hope that everything is ok with her and we can see her competing in the future.
It was a bit difficult to keep eye on Asian champs since the news coverage was so small. It also seems, that the Asian nations don't apprectiate this competition really high since you didn't saw much olympic winners or top lifters on the stage; Cao Lei andPrapawadee Jaroenrattanatarakoon were the only Beijing winner to take part and ironically neither of them took the first position.
So not so much to mention. Iran took the firsti position before Kazakhstan and China. No new records were set.
Disclaimer: This text was published at first on a board which concentrates on female sports, so there are no men included. For complete result coverage, visit EWF.
Women 58
I guess there will be no previews since it seems to be very difficult to find information about athletes. It seems one needs to have connections in some weightlifting association in order to get some up-to-date statistics. Most of the organizers - and even federations - don't care about informing the public which I'm strugling to understand.
Today the women's competition started with 58 kg division. It was time to for new lifters to step up because this category European number one lifter, Marina Shainova, wasn't there today.
In snatch it was tough battle to make to the podium; first and second were tied with 96 kg and the third was on one kilo behind. Weird thing that Eurosport didn't televise this in Finland.
In C&J it was all Anastasia Novikava of Belarus. She only needed two attemps in order to secure her victory and lifts looked really effortless. Snatch winner, Romela Begaj, wasn't that strong in clean and jerk making only one succesfull lift, but it was enough for bronze medal in total. Roxana Cocos was really trying in front home crowd and it looked pretty good at first, but she failed two times in 117 attempts. Julija Kalina's was second in alla categories.
Finlands' lifters Anna and Jenni placed 10th and 12th respectively.
1) Anastasia Novikava Valko-Venäjä 216 (96+120)2) Julija Kalina, Ukraina 212 (95+117)3) Romela Begaj, Albania 207 (96+111)4) Roxana Cocos, Romania 204 (90+114)5) Julija Derkatsh, Ukraina 192 (85+107)6) Agnes Chiquet, Ranska 191 (82+109)7) Iryna Mishtshuk, Valko-Venäjä 185 (90+95)8) Chariklia Kastritsi, Kreikka 183 (83+100)9) Konstantina Lapou, Kreikka 182 (87+95)10) Anna Everi, Suomi 173 (76+97)11) Ivelina Nikolova, Bulgaria 173 (80+93)12) Jenni Puputti, Suomi 165 (77+88)13) Christina Ejstrup, Tanska 147 (65+82)Ingrid Teeuwen, Alankomaat – (0+58)
Women 48
Today was it was turn for the light weights, 48 kilos. Results hasn't been updated yet, but Taylan Nurgan - about whom I've talked about a little in SMFA thread - was the favourite to win the competition I guess. Very young athletes in lower weight classes, like Iovu Cristina - just 16 years old.
1 TAYLAN NURCAN 29.10.1983 A TUR 47,71 81 85 88 100 108 114x 196 301,02 IOVU CRISTINA 08.11.1992 A MDA 47,88 75 79x 79x 94x 94 96 171* 261,73 KARPIŃSKA MARZENA 19.02.1988 A POL 47,68 78x 78 80x 92 94x 94x 170 261,24 PAGLIARO CATERINA GENNY 15.10.1988 A ITA 47,63 72x 72 78x 90 93x 93x 162 249,15 MICHEL ANAIS 12.01.1988 A FRA 47,88 62x 62 65 78 81 84 149 228,16 ANGELOVA SILVIA 22.06.1982 A BUL 47,67 62x 62 65x 78 80x 80 142 218,27 ANDRIES ELENA 21.01.1994 A ROU 46,37 60 63x 63x 75 80x 82x 135 212,7
Women 53
Shame that last year's silver ja bronze medalists Maria de la Puente and Julia Rohde didn't participate this year in 53 kg category. Nataliya Trotsenko renewd her victory from last year in all lift forms although in c&j Turkish Aylin Dasdalen really gave run for her money; she made two attempts from 111 kg and hurt her elbow. First lift was really close to succeed, but it was too much today.
Boyanka Kostova 5th and just 15 years old and she looked like one of the most buffed competitors. They really start to grow young in Eastern Europe.
Place Lot Name Born Nat B.W. Snatch Jerk Total Points1. 225 NATALIYA TROTSENKO 07/11/1984 UKR 52.32 87 105 192 282. 10 AYLIN DASDELEN 01/01/1982 TUR 52.57 82 105 187 253. 127 EMINE BILGIN 15/07/1984 TUR 52.23 83 103 186 234. 74 JOANNA LOCHOWSKA 07/11/1988 POL 52.67 81 103 184 225. 194 BOYANKA KOSTOVA 10/05/1993 BUL 52.81 78 102 180 216. 136 ABIGAIL GUERRERO 18/07/1987 ESP 52.58 77 101 178 207. 48 VIRGINIE ANDRIEUX 21/03/1980 FRA 51.3 77 96 173 198. 226 MALWINA ROWINSKA 06/11/1986 POL 52.81 73 100 173 189. 224 SVETLANA ULYANOVA 29/08/1979 RUS 51.01 74 95 169 1710. 98 DANA BERCHI 11/03/1990 ROU 52.63 73 95 168 1611. 132 ANCA SCRIDON 17/05/1989 ROU 52.38 71 93 164 1512. 38 LENA BERNTSSON 04/11/1978 SWE 52.53 71 85 156 1413. 205 LAURA FLEURY 07/01/1988 FRA 52.62 68 84 152 1314. 217 DARIA TRIFONOV 23/07/1991 ISR 52.23 70 80 150 1215. 78 SARAH DE COSTER 09/01/1986 BEL 52.53 62 79 141 11
Women 63
It was at last Gold for Sibel Şimşek of Turkey. So many times she's left to second place but today it was her time. All of her lifts looked really powerful even though she failed in her last 132 kg c&j attempt. In snatch she made all of her lifts power style.
European champion from two previous years, Meline "Unibrow" Daluzya, had to leave this time empty handed. It was nice to see some skandic people on stage when Kasirye Ruth took silver in total and was really pushing in snatch event pressure to Sibel.
Russia took their first women's medal in these competition when Tsarukaeva Svetlana won her tight battle with Armenian Daluzya.
RANK NAME BORN GR. NATION B. WEIGHT TOTAL POINTS1 SIMSEK SIBEL 10.10.1984 A TUR 62,55 103 105 108 125 128 132x 236 294,72 KASIRYE RUTH 01.06.1982 A NOR 62,31 101 104 107 124 128x 128x 231 289,23 TSARUKAEVA SVETLANA 25.12.1987 A RUS 62,77 95 100 103 120 125 128 231 287,84 DALUAZYAN MELINE 20.04.1988 A ARM 62,64 100x 100 104x 120 125 128 228 284,55 GOTFRYD MARIETA 11.09.1980 A POL 62,34 92 95 97 108 112 114x 209 261,66 ORSAGOVA LENKA 20.09.1983 A CZE 62,81 87 90x 90 110 114 117x 204 254,17 SMOSARSKA ANNA 25.07.1985 A POL 62,77 88x 88 90 109 113x x 199 248,08 SUNAR MUSLIME 16.07.1982 A FRA 62,23 88 91 93x 107x 107x 107 198 248,19 STUKALAVA TATSIANA 03.10.1975 B BLR 62,36 85 89 92x 100 105 108 197 246,510 OHMANN MARINA 02.01.1983 A ISR 62,74 87x 87 89x 103x 103 105x 190 236,811 RAMOS SHEILA 20.12.1990 B ESP 62,68 75 80 82x 97 102x 102 182 227,012 VICENTE ANTONIA 30.08.1979 B ESP 61,56 70 74x 74 90 94x 94 168 212,013 MUREANU ELIZA 16.02.1989 B ROU 62,83 63 67 70x 88 91 94x 158 196,814 LJUBICA NEVJESTIC 15.09.1988 B BIH 62,54 62x 62x 62 75 78 80 142 177,4HARJU HEIDI 11.12.1981 B FIN 62,89 80x 80 83x 97x 97x 97x 0 0,0
Women 69
Before 69 kilo category I thought the scrpt would be clear: Oxana Slivenko would take the gold and the rest would compete against eachothers. After snatch it looked like this. The Russian made three succesfull lifts with the confidence of former world record owner, but something changed in the clean and jerk; at first 136 kg lift faltering and fail at 140 kg. Lifts looked very wobbly and it looked at the moment that she might lose her grip to gold medal, but with the experience of multichampion she was able to pull it together and performed her best lift in high pressure.
Nazik Avdalyan of Serbia pushed the competition to it's final lifts. She took a risk and tried twice lifting 145 kg which would have secured her the championships but it was no good. It was just too much today. Anyway she made the ending exciting.
The personality of the competition goes to another Russian, Tatiana Matveeva. She really fought for third position in clean and jerki. She was six kilos behinf Yulia Artemova after snatch lifts but bested the Ukranian seven kilos in clean and jerk for bronze medal. Her lifts looked really wobbly but she managed to keep it together. She really needs to add some gripp in middle body and she would lift a lot more.
It was a bit disapponting not to see Nadezda Evstyukhina lifting. I have no indormation why she didn't participate but let's hope that she isn't injured. She would be needed in world champs to compete against likes of Cao Lei.
Anyway the script for gold was clear from start to finish. It was all about the Russian, once again. This is really tough division there, because if all the lifters would have been able to participate here, Russian would probably have taken all the medals. Natalia Zabolotnaya clearly followed her lifting plan and all of her lifts looked easy - if the competition would have been harder, she would most likely have done more.
The lovely Lidia Valentin was really good at snatch making her new record but the competition wasn't over yet. In clean and jerk she managed to do only one good lift and she lost her second position. Real shame, I wonder what went wrong.
I missed the heavyweights, but anyhow, here's a name to remember: Tatiana Kasirina 18-year-old, Junior champion, Junior world record holder and now European champion too.
Place Lot Name Born Nat B.W. Snatch Jerk Total Points1. 239 TATIANA KASHIRINA 24/01/1991 RUS 88.72 125 155 280 282. 231 NATALIA GAGARINA 10/09/1983 RUS 103.38 110 143 253 253. 91 YULIYA DOVHAL 02/06/1983 UKR 90.62 111 141 252 234. 111 UMMAHAN GURCAV 01/01/1986 TUR 91.16 107 137 244 225. 167 KATHLEEN SCHOPPE 16/12/1982 GER 92.05 102 131 233 216. 163 SULE SAHBAZ 27/01/1987 TUR 89.06 108 120 228 207. 36 VIKTORIA MAVRIDOU 08/07/1991 GRE 105.89 108 120 228 198. 147 SABINA BAGINSKA 19/10/1985 POL 98.14 100 125 225 189. 202 ANNAROSA CAMPALDINI 09/07/1985 ITA 94.61 92 120 212 1710. 35 ANDREEA AANEI 18/11/1993 ROU 101.81 91 106 197 1611. 60 KRISZTINA MAGAT 02/03/1989 HUN 101.03 90 103 193 1512. 101 MERCEDES ARCHANCO 07/02/1992 ESP 83.1 80 100 180 14
Athletics outdoor season is taking it first steps and it was a good weekend for javelin throwers.
Christina Obergföll showed that the German is fired up once again throwing 68,40 which tops Mariya Abakumovas old leading mark made in the Russian winter cup with almost three metres. The result was made in Halle, Germany.
In men reigning olympic champion Andreas Thorkhildsen was dropped third on the list as Vadims Vasilevskis threw 90,71 and Ari Mannio 85,70 respectively.
As said before, the season is just starting, but it most certainly looks like we are about to see tough competitions in javelin this year.
The first youth weightlifting championships has been competed in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Lifters born before 1.1.1992 were taking their first breath of world championship competitions and got a good look how international competitions are beeing held; lifting in the center of media attention can be very different to in local competition where they don't so much pressures and tough rivals.
As expected, China took the first position in women's team classification before Russians and the host, Thailand. In men Iran came first, then Russia again and China was left third.
In women it was three world records asOKUR Saziye won the women's 44 kilogram category with flying colours, made a new word record in snatch and came only four kilos short in total, WANG Li bested snatch record with three kilos as her way to three gold medals and DENG Wei made the boards clear in clean and jerk at 58's.
In men it was a bit more quite since LU Yuntao in 50 kilos division was the only one to be able to make new records. But also CHEN Xiong might be a name to remember since he dominated the next groub, 56 kg.
In international Eleiko women grand prix Abir Abdel Rahman Khalil, in the picture, made a staggering performance as she lifted 111 + 142 and took the first place in Sinclair before Norways Ruth Kasirye. The Ehyptian has still the whole year time to break youth world records set by Tatyana Kashirina (120+150).
POL
SVK
GER
UKR
ITA
LTU
HUN
EST
USA
