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| Krisztian Pars of Hungary won the European hammer title with a throw of 79.72m in Helsinki on Saturday. |
No less than eight 80m throwers lined up in the hammer final at the Olympic Stadium in Helsinki on Saturday which like the discus, was an event worthy of an Olympic final.
Hungarian Krisztian Pars, has been competing at the top level for some time but had never won a major senior title since winning the 2001 European Athletics Junior Championships. However, second in the European and world lists with 82.28m he was the clear favourite. He had headed qualifying with 78.09m to confirm his position as the one to beat.
The silver medallist in last year's World Championships and third in the 2010 European Championships, he dominated throughout and had the five best throws of the competition.
He took the lead in the first round with 78.57m and then improved to 79.40m in the second. His winning throw of 79.72m in the fourth round fell just short of the magic 80m barrier and then he peppered it again with 79.46m in the fifth, His final throw in the knowledge he was finally a champion was a slightly below par 77.47m but it was still better than the rest.
He said, 'I'm very happy. This is my first gold medal in the European Championships. The atmosphere was very good.'
Because of the less than favourable conditions, 79.72m is the shortest winning distance since 1978.
Russian Aleksiy Zagorny, the 2009 World championships bronze medallist who has a 83.43m PB, started gently with 74.97m which he improved to 76.51m to go into second in the second round. He dropped to third in the final round but a 77.40m final throw gave him back the silver.
'My goal was not to win or do something big here. For me it was no problem to participate in the European Championships during the Olympic year. This was really good mental preparation for the Olympics. The last attempt made me very happy, because I managed to beat Szymon who had passed me with his last attempt,' said Zagorny.
The 2000 Olympic champion Szymon Ziolkowski from Poland took bronze after that battle with the Russian. He had a PB of 83.38m from 2001 and his best this year was 78.51m. He opened with a 76.44m which he marginally improved to 76.67m in the final round.
He said, 'Today was not that good. I'm too old for a weather like that. Now I'm thinking about a nice hot bath!'
Belarus's Valery Sviatokha was fourth with 75.83m to match his fourth from 2010.
He finished narrowly ahead of veteran Nicola Vizzoni. The Italian, who had been the Olympic silver medallist way back in 2000 and was the silver medallist from the 2010 Europeans, threw 75.13m for fifth.
Germany Marcus Esser was fourth in last year's World championships. A consistent performer, he was been in the top eight in each of the last four World championships and he was seventh here with 74.49m. His best European result was fourth in 2006.
Belarus's Pavel Kryvitski was a double World finalist with a best of 80.67m and the 2005 European under-23 champion was ninth with 73.67m.
Olli-Pekka Karjalainen was the big crowd favourite. The Finn qualified fourth for the final with 74.34m. His best in 2012 was only 75.15m, though his lifetime best dates all the way back to 2004. His best international result was a European silver medal back in 2006 but here despite the crowd's urging he could only finish tenth.
He began with a 69.97m then improved to 73.08m and then 73.48m, which left him a metre down on having three more throws.
Ukraine's Oleksiy Sokrrskyy, who was the third best qualifier with 75.35m and was sixth in 2010, had three no throws.