News08 Apr 2010


Wlodarczyk's return to headline Hammer Throw Challenge opener in Dakar

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Anita Wlodarczyk of Poland in the hammer throw cage in the women's Hammer final at the 12th IAAF World Championships in Athletics (© Getty Images)

World champion and World record holder Anita Wlodarczyk of Poland will make her 2010 debut at the Meeting Grand Prix IAAF de Dakar on 24 April, the kick-off of the women’s 2010 IAAF Hammer Throw Challenge.

The 24-year-old Pole dominated the event in 2009, winning 12 of her 14 competitions while producing five of the year’s 10 farthest throws. Her triumphant campaign was capped by her thrilling victory at the World Championships in Berlin where she threw a World record of 77.96m. But her season ended shortly after her record was announced when she sustained a serious ankle injury while celebrating her triumph.

Now fully mended, Wlodarczyk is aiming to win the Inaugural Hammer Throw Challenge, a season-long contest in which an athlete’s three best performances will be added together to decide the overall winner.  In addition to prize money offered at each of the series’ 11 meetings, athletes will be vying for a piece of the overall prize pot of US$202,000, with $30,000 going to both the men’s and women’s winners.

Among those testing Wlodarczyk in her comeback competition will be Italy's Clarissa Claretti, a two-time World and 2008 Olympic finalist. Others in the field include Argentine Jennifer Dahlgren, who has throw 72.66 this season, just some 30 centimeters shy of her own South American record; 2004 World junior champion Maryia Smaliachkova of Belarus; Marina Marghieva of Moldova, the national record holder at 72.53m; and Erin Gilreath, the U.S. record holder at 73.87m.

The first meeting in the men’s side of the Challenge will be in Osaka on 8 May.

Bob Ramsak for the IAAF

Click here for IAAF Hammer Throw Challenge

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