Fazekas second test turned out to be positive as well !!!

Throwholics already spread the news about Fazekas tested positive for the first sample.

The Hungaria´s former European Champion Róbert Fazekas was tested positive two weeks before the Olympic Games.

There was a rumour about Fazekas being tested positive and the Hungarian officials canceld him from the Olympic list.

This rumour turned out to be true now as the second sample was checked and turned out to be positive as well. Fazekas denies that he took drugs but two samples proove otherwise!

Next Tuesday will be a hearing about this incident and we will keep you posted what happens.

Fazekas has a personal best of 71.70m. In 2002 he became the European Champion in discus event. Two years later he was unable to give a drug sampe after winning the Olympic Games ahead of Lithuania´s Virgilijus Alekna. Later Alekna was enhanced to Gold medal.

Fazekas served a two year penalty that started in 2006. In 2008 he made a comeback and competed at the Beijing Olympics. His season´s best is 65.14m. Now, after failing his second drug test Fazekas is facing the lifetime ban.

No stopping Harting as winning run goes to 34

Robert Harting ended last year as the Olympic and European discus champion. He did so after a summer where in May he had sent out a message with maximum impact.

Twelve months on he is back repeating the same story – almost to the day. Exactly a year ago German thrower Harting produced his longest effort of 2012 – infact the longest in the world all year – with 70,66m (231′ 9″) in Turnov. This time in Wiesbaden on Monday he soared to the top of the rankings again at this early stage of the summer with a throw of 68,31m (224′ 1″). Once more he is the man the others have to beat.

After his gold medal success at the World Championships in Daegu, Harting will be determined to keep hold of that crown in Moscow in 10 weeks time. He is in a remarkable vein of form as this triumph stretched his winning run to 34 meetings and 1005 days. No discus thrower has ever gone that long without losing.

But Harting, 28, is the unmovable object of the event. The world standard for the discus had been set by Australian Benn Harradine with his 68,20m (223′ 9″) in Townsville, Queensland, on May 10 and then on Saturday in Shanghai, Poland’s Piotr Malachowski moved to the top of the European Athletics rankings with 67,34m (220′ 11″). But both those lists now have Harting at the forefront after his impressive performance as he beat fellow German Martin Wierig who was second with 66,50m (218′ 2″).

Another significant factor for Harting in throwing 68,31m (224′ 1″) is that it is further than both his gold medal-winning efforts at last year’s Olympic in London and European Athletics Championships in Helsinki. Confidence is such a key element for an athlete and to know that you are on a better course than two of your biggest victories can do no harm.

As silver medallist from Barcelona in 2010, Harting went that one step higher on the podium in Helsinki by achieving gold in the fourth round with 68,30m (224′), ahead of Estonia’s Gerd Kanter who threw 66,53m (218′ 3″). Then in London he won with 68,27m (223′ 11″), from the fifth round, beating Iran’s Ehsan Hadadi who was second with 68,18m (223′ 8″).

Early days indeed, but it could be ominous days for the others.

Rome settles for silver in Guadalajara at Pan Ams

GUADALAJARA, Mexico- Marysville’s Jarred Rome , a graduate of Marysvile-Pilchuck High School, finished second in the men’s discus competition at the Pan American Games, contested at Telmex Athletics Stadium.

Rome threw a best of 202-5 (61.71m) as Cuba’s Jorge Fernandez, who finished eighth at the Daegu world championships, took the victory with a best of 215-2 (65.58m).

Such was the Cuban’s dominance Monday that any of his four fair throws would have won the competition.

Rome opened with a foul, then threw 200-1 (60.98m) in round 2, then got his best toss in round three. He then fouled his final three attempts, as Ronald Juliao of Brazil got close to the Boise State grad, as Juliao threw his best of 61.70 (202-5), one centimeter short of Rome’s best on the day.

Afterwards, the 6-4, 300 pound Rome said,  “Two days ago I threw in the ring. We weren´t suppose to, but I snuck into the stadium because the rings outside were brand new and really slick and I fell on my face. I sneak in here and the ring was perfect. Then yesterday I heard they put concrete over the ring and resurfaced the top and weren´t even sure it would be dry. So I get in the ring today and was slipping like Jason (teammate Young). So I went like 75 percent and couldn´t really do anything. My first throw went into cage as I slipped out of the back. My second throw was a safety throw to make sure I get to finals. And then my third throw was my best throw. But in order to compete with the Cuban (gold medalist Jorge Fernandez) I couldn´t afford to slip so it was a bad situation. I´m so large (6-4, 300) that when I move out of the back if it´s not a good surface I´m done. A lot of meets are stressful, because I have to make sure the ring is right in order to throw far. The Cuban threw well and I´m happy to get the silver.”

“I took two weeks off instead of four weeks after the World Championships. I´m very happy that I´m here. This is definitely more than I thought it would be. In meets like this isn´t about the distance…it’s about the place.”

“I feel real good. My training the last four months has been the best training of my career leading up to the World Championships. I was very disappointed after the World Championships. I had PRed (68.76), which is third in the world right now, three weeks before the World Championships which was amazing. I had high expectations for Worlds but was really disappointed. I was eight centimeters away from reaching the finals in the World Championships. I was definitely in medal shape.”

Michael Mai, formerly based at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, will throw in the men’s hammer on Wednesday.

Alekna was unbeatable in Szczecin with a great effort of 68.50m

Another meeting was held today in Warsaw, Poland.

The conditions were tough for all of them and only the lithuanian Virgilijus Alekna could really cope with those.

He launched 68.50m and won the competition!

The Australian Benn Harradine, who recently brought a lot of fun to the competitions with his nice suits, became second with 64.92m. The Polish European Champion of 2010 Piotr Malachowski became third with 64.29m and Robert Urbanek was really close with 64.23m

Anita Wlodarczyk won the women hammer throw competition with excellent 76.81m!

How to throw far…

…by using the wind assistance. Recently we published a post on our Facebook fanpage that picked up a significant amout of feedback. Because of the fact that many throwers have no idea why´s all the noise about wind, we decided to publish an article about scientific research and prove those by adding several examples. All you are about to read is proven through many decades.

How wind helps?

Based on “The Physics Of Sports” by Angelo Armenti Jr. ( Ed. ), chapter 8 “Fluids and Sports”. Aerodynamic effects on discus flight ( by Cliff Frohlich ).

In it the author reviews the available literature on the physics of discus and analyzes its flight under the combined influence of gravity, aerodynamic drag and aerodynamic lift. He then calculates differences in the horizontal range of a well- thrown discus caused by changes in wind velocity, altitude, air temperature, gravity and release velocity.

As to relative magnitudes ( which means all the calculations are approximate ), Frohlich notes that:

a discus can travel: 1) 8.2 meters farther against a 10- m/s wind; 2) 0.13 m farther at 0°C than at +40°C; 3) 0.19 m farther with no wind at the elevation (geometric height from the sea level) of Rome than at the elevation of Mexico City; 4) 0.34 m farther at the equator than at the poles.

It´s remarkable for 2 reasons:

• 8.2 m is more than 10% of a world class discus throw
• unlike most other track and field events, the discus throw is one event in which the athlete is helped rather than hindered from the head wind.

The ironic state of affairs stems from the fact that, while aerodynamic drag¹ and aerodynamic lift² are both increased by the presence of a head wind, the increased aerodynamic lift more than makes up for the increased aerodynamic drag, threreby resulting in additional range, at least for head wind velocities of 20 m/ s or less.

¹ force that acts opposite to the direction of the movement of the discus, put your head out of a driving car and you can feel the drag
² the component of the aerodynamic forces acting on an airfoil that opposes gravity

Also, due to aerodynamic factors, the launch angle for maximum range for a discus is about 35° as compared to the familiar 45° for projectiles in a vacuum.

Frohlich notes that considering the importance of the aerodynamic forces affecting discus flight, it is surprising that record books make no distinctions between marks recorded in still air and wind-aided marks.

Effect of rotation of the discus

The most important effect of the discus rotation is to stabilize its orientation during flight. Upon release the discus rotates at ~ 7 rps. In the absence of applied torques the discus initial orientation is preserved throughout its flight.

At the moment of release, the discus thrower will usually attempt to orient the discus so as to maximize the lift forces and minimize the drag forces while the discus is travelling upward and outward.

Most investigators agree that the optimum strategy in still air is to release the discus so that its inclination angle alfa is about 5° to 10° less than the release angle R. Although this results in negative lift during the very beginning of the flight, it allows for a minimum drag and optimum average lift throughout the upward part of its flight.

In fact, the torques applied by aerodynamic forces during flight are not negligible, although they are quite small. If one carefully observes the orientation of a discus in flight, one notices that for a right- handed thrower the left side of the discus tilts ( rolls ) gradually downward about 10° during the latter portion of its flight. Why?

One effect of air on the discus is to create torques that change the orientation of the axis of rotation of the discus. For the discus tilted with front slightly upwards and moving to the right the largest torques are caused because the lift forces are larger on the forward half of the discus than the rear half. Thus the lift force acts at point A and creates a torque that causes the angular momentum vector to move in space. This causes the right edge of the discus to tilt slowly upwards during the flight.

Similarly, because of the discus rotation, the relative velocity is greater on the left side of the discus than the right, causing a net upwards force to act on the left side of the discus. This force creates a torque which causes the forward edge of the discus to tilt progressively upwards during flight.

Zoltan Kovago launches 67.17m at the Hungarian Championships

Zoltan Kovago, the world leader with 69.50m had a tight compeition schedule this weekend. First he competed at the Diamond League meet held in London and was 2nd there with 66.29m, then he participated at the Hungarian Championships in Szekszárd.

Hes winning throw was 67.17m which gave him a easy victory over Gabor Mata who was second with 59.08m.

Another remarkable performance was measured in the men´s hammer where Krisztian Pars threw a new season´s best with 80.63m. Still it´s not the world lead as Aleksei Zagornõi has thrown 81.73m. Only 4 athletes have reached 80m line this year.

Aleksander Tammert started his season

The Olympic bronze medalist Aleksander Tammert (EST  ) started his season in Kärdla, at the Taavi Peetre´s Memorial. He threw 60.14m which was good for the second place.

The winner was Martin Kupper (EST ) who threw his new lifetime best with 60.18m. Priidu Niit (EST ) was third with also a new personal best of 59.16m.

In the main event, men´s shot put, Latvia´s Maris Urtans put a new stadium record with 20.60m. Urtans was followed by Andrei Borodkin (UKR ) with 19.53m and Andrei Semenov   (UKR ) with 19.36m. Danish Kim Juhl Christensen was fourth with 19.24m which is his season´s best.

Taavi Peetre (5 July 1983 11 September 2010)was an Estonian shot putter and discus thrower. He represented his country at two Olympic Games (in 2004 and 2008) and also took part in the World Championships in Athletics on two occasions. His personal best shot put mark of 20.33  m is the second best by an Estonian thrower after Heino Sild. His personal best in discus throw was 60.84  m, achieved in April 2010 in Denton, Texas, USA.^[2] He died in 2010 after a boat accident.

Career

Born in Käina Parish, his first major international competition was the 1999 World Youth Championships in Athletics, where he was tenth in the discus throw qualifiers of the competition’s inaugural edition. Peetre finished ninth in the shot put final at the 2002 World Junior Championships, having already thrown a national junior record of 17.71  m earlier that year, and also competed in the qualifiers of the discus contest.He improved his best shot put mark to 19.02  m the following year and made his first Olympic appearance at the 2004 Olympic Games.

Having changed his focus to primarily the shot put, the 2005 season marked a further breakthrough into the senior ranks. He represented Estonia at the 2005 European Athletics Indoor Championships and then at the 2005 World Championships later in the season, but did not get past the qualifiers on either occasion.He enjoyed success at lower level competitions, however, winning shot put silver medals at the 2005 European Athletics U23 Championships, 2005 Universiade, and in the A League of the 2005 European Cup.

He improved his indoor shot put best in February 2006, throwing 19.81  m, and was eleventh at the European Cup Winter Throwing. He retained his runner-up place in the A League section of the 2006 European Cup, but managed only eleventh in the qualifiers of his first continental outdoor championships, the 2006 European Athletics Championships. A low-key 2007 was highlighted by a win at the national championships and eighteenth in the qualifiers at the 2007 European Athletics Indoor Championships.

He returned to top form in 2008, throwing over sixty metres in the discus for the first time and putting a season’s best of 20.22  m in the shot just prior to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. At his second Olympic shot put competition he had a best mark of 19.57  m but failed to reach the final round. In 2009 he regained the national shot put title and gave his best performance at a global event at the 2009 World Championships in Athletics: his mark of 19.91  m was the fifth best of his qualification group, but this was not enough to progress to the final.He achieved a personal best in the shot put of 20.33  m in July 2010 in Viljandi, Estonia. His last major international championships was the 2010 European Athletics Championships, where he threw 19.42  m for seventh place in the qualifying round.

On 11 September 2010, Peetre drowned in Lake Tamula during a fishing trip with friends.