¶'09 WC mJT: Andreas Thorkildsen (Norway) 293-11 (89.59)

[nevetsllim]

Thorky 89.59m!

[croflash]

Silver for Martinez and Bronze for Murakami.

[gm]

Silver for Martinez and Bronze for Murakami.

A couple of spectacular results from two lesser-known throwers!

[LopenUupunut]

@£[{€]¤/&(/#¤%&"(&#((/&%/&#%&¤"

I think that's the polite word.

Back home today, our fifth guy Ari Mannio made a point with 83.44. That would have been enough for bronze...

[gh]

1 878 Andreas Thorkildsen NOR 89.59 (SB)
2 304 Guillermo Martínez CUB 86.41 (SB)
3 699 Yukifumi Murakami JPN 82.97
4 785 Vadims Vasilevskis LAT 82.37
5 429 Tero Pitkämäki FIN 81.90
6 430 Antti Ruuskanen FIN 81.87
7 777 Ainars Kovals LAT 81.54
8 534 Mark Frank GER 81.32
9 433 Teemu Wirkkala FIN 79.82
10 312 Petr Frydrych CZE 79.29
11 423 Tero Järvenpää FIN 75.57
12 1181 Sean Furey USA 74.51

[Powell]

Silver for Martinez and Bronze for Murakami.

A couple of spectacular results from two lesser-known throwers!

I wouldn't call Martinez an unknown thrower per se. He's been around for a while. This was his third consecutive WCh final. It's just that he hasn't had a really good throw for two years until Berlin.

Murakami is definitely a major shock. A 29-year old, whose previous PB was below 82 meters (set 5 years ago at that!) suddenly makes a major breakthrough 11 years after winning a WJC medal.

At the same time, I can't help feeling it's a bit embarassing to win a WCh medal with a throw below 83 meters. I'm sure Murakami won't mind too much, though.

[3]

[I wouldn't call Martinez an unknown thrower per se.

Mr. Powell, "gm" didn't. He called the two athletes *lesser knowns*, which has a completel different connotation and meaning that *unknowns* does.

[rson]

Guillermo Martinez

Martinez missed most of 2008,apparently through injury and for some reason was not among the Cubans who traveled to Europe for competitions prior to the Championships.Looked good at the CAC Championships in Havana.

[Per Andersen]

Martinez did not even set a PB. He has 87.17 from a few years back.

But Thorkildsen was terrific today. Felt great during the warm-up. Beautiful to watch when he throws like today. Fabulous reach. The javelin is so far back when he plants + the stretch across the chest. Lightning fast strike, almost Zelezny like.

Pitkamaki was far from well but what happened to the other Finns? Jarvenpaa has had his problems, but the other two?

[nbonaddio]

@£[{€]¤/&(/#¤%&"(&#((/&%/&#%&¤"

I think that's the polite word.

Back home today, our fifth guy Ari Mannio made a point with 83.44. That would have been enough for bronze...

I refrained from commmenting until now. @£[{€]¤/&(/#¤%&"(&#((/&%/&#%&¤ indeed.

In other news, in my recent "Millionaire" appearance, I was asked a question about Kimi Raikkonen, so that was certainly a bit of Suomen serendipity for me.

[LopenUupunut]

Pitkamaki was far from well but what happened to the other Finns? Jarvenpaa has had his problems, but the other two?

They (all) just broke into tiny little bits under the pressure. And (as you know) javelin is such a fragile and highly technical event that if you try too much - or take it too easy in an attempt to avoid trying too much - there's a very large chance everything goes wrong and badly so.

Ruuskanen did okay, even though this was his first adult major meet which put a little extra pressure on. I'm inclined to guess this is because he always tries too hard in any case so there was little difference to a normal meet... Like Kovals, he could have medaled if he'd just got one flying a little higher.

But Wirkkala, who is usually much more stable and has been eating eighty for lunch lately, just didn't have a medalist's mentality yesterday.

To look on the bright side, we still didn't bomb as badly as the Russian pole vault girls! (Or as badly as we bombed back in '78.)

[LopenUupunut]

A Seppo Räty quote, from after the qualification and before the final:

The throwers of Cuba and Japan were a pleasant surprise - there's still somebody around who knows how to throw a javelin after all.

I'd like to see Räty as our national coach. I'm not sure he'd do any better than our current coach (Hannu Kangas) but at least we'd get a lot of tasty quotes.

[miguel]

Really impressive by Thorkildsen but it was no big surprise for me. He has showed all that he is the man to beat during championships.

He also wrote history by being the 1st ever in javelin to have won EC,WC and Oly, something that not even GOAT Zelezny managed to do. On top of it Thorkildsen is the reigning champion in all of them.

If Thorkildsen was terrific, terrible is the word to sum up the performances by finns.