| European Championships preview | 20th Jul 2010 |
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The biggest hammer event this year should be the European Championships, which have been in the past won by an array of all-time greats. With Kozmus having retired and the reinstated Tikhon and Devyatovskiy still to resurface, the men's event has been very quiet this year with just two men over 80m - the experienced Charfreitag of Slovakia and Kryvitski of Belarus (8th in the World Champs last year, but winner of the European Team in Bergen). Pars (Hungary) is highly ranked again as he was last year but he was below his best in the Worlds. The Germans Litvinov and Esser will be favoured - both have been in good form this summer but Latvian Sokolovs, ahead of them in the rankings, is more inconsistent. Zagorniy, 3rd in Berlin, was only 4th in the Russian Championships, while world silver medallist Ziolkowski is only the second ranked Pole this year. With relatively modest standards this year throws below 75m might make the final 12, while they'll all find 80m hard to beat in the final.
In the women's event Anita Wlodarczyk improved her world record earlier this year to 78.30 but has recently been injured. Betty Heidler is likely to be a real threat for the title (she won the European Team this year), as will Lysenko who's shown good form this year. Belarus will be represented by Pchelnik who has thrown 75m this year - but went out in qualifying at the Worlds last year. German Klaas and French girl Falzon are both throwing well and should make the final - 69-70m should be enough. |
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