Just 41 days ahead of her fortieth birthday, Poland’s world record and three-time Olympic champion Anita Wlodarczyk rolled back the years to win the women’s hammer in Madrid on Saturday (28).
The Madrid 2025 European Athletics Team Championships 1st Division is being streamed live on the European Athletics website courtesy of the Eurovision Sport Platform.
Modern day legend
The modern day legend of Polish athletics opened with a foul, but then recorded a 70.04m heave in round two.
The Pole improved to 70.55m in her next effort to be a provisional third as Finland’s Silja Kosonen, fifth at the Paris Olympics, had opened with a 72.58m toss to lead the event ahead of Anna Purchase. The 25-year-old Briton bounced back after two dangerous fouls to move to the runner-up place thanks to a 71.41m third-try heave.
Over the second half of the contest Wlodarczyk improved to a season’s best of 73.34 in round four to move to the front as Kosonen’s 72.64 response was not good enough to regain the top spot.
The fifth attempt witnessed the Pole and the Finn landing identical throws of 73.09m, a slight improvement for Kosonen but still 25 centimetres shy from the leading mark.
Over the closing throw, neither Wlodarczyk nor Kosonen managed to better their previous heaves (72.14m and 71.20m respectively), the living-legend Pole finally prevailing over the Finn who had to settle for the second place as it was the case two years ago in Silesia; in the fight for the third spot Purchase held off the late challenge provided by Italy’s Sara Fantini in her sixth attempt (70.56m).