 |
| Hammer throw world champion Anita Wlodarczyk of Poland. |
Poland’s 2009 hammer world champion, and former world record holder, Anita Wlodarczyk will have her first competition of the year at the 57th Janusz Kusocinski Memorial meeting in Szczecin, Poland, on Saturday.
Wlodarczyk suffered an abdominal muscle tear earlier in the year and missed more than two several months of training. In that time, she also lost her world record to Germany’s Betty Heidler who threw 79.42m last month.
“Some people close to me suggest it might be a good thing as I’ll be even more motivated to get it back,” joked Wlodarczyk.
“Whether I will get the world record back is another matter, I’ll have to train like previous years and making up for the lost time this year will not be so easy. At this very moment in time, I don’t’ know if I will even go to the World Championship in Korea. There is no point going there just to throw 68 or 70 metres,” she added, on a more serious note.
Many of Poland’s top stars will also be at the fourth of this summer’s European Athletics Outdoor Premium Meetings.
The 2008 Olympic Games shot put champion Tomasz Majewski will be up against Belarus’ 2010 European Athletics Championships gold medallist Andrey Mikhnevich.
Barcelona discus winner Piotr Malachowski will face one of his predecessors as European champion, Hungary’s 2002 gold medallist Robert Fazekas.
The jumps should also provide plenty of highlights.
Ukraine’s Dmytro Demyanyuk, fresh from jumping a world-leading 2.35m to win at the SPAR European Team Championships on Saturday, will compete against Russia’s 2009 world champion Yaroslav Rybakov.
The women’s pole vault pits Poland’s own 2009 world champion Anna Rogowska - who, like Demyanyuk, also won and cleared a 2011 world-leading height in Stockholm - and Russia’s 2010 European champion Svetlana Feofanova.
A strong contingent of Ukraine women runners will also be coming across the border, headed by the 2011 European Athletics Indoor Championships 60m winner Olesya Povh who runs in the 100m, as well as Lilya Lobanova, the fastest European over two laps of the track this year, in the 800m.
Russia’s 2010 European Athletics Championships 400m hurdles gold medallist Natalya Antyukh will also be in Szczecin.
The 57th Janusz Kusocinski Memorial meeting is the fourth of nine European Athletics Outdoor Premium Meetings in 2011.
Further details of all European Athletics Outdoor Meetings can be found here:
http://www.european-athletics.org/calendar-meetings-2011.html