Joe Kovacs in action in the shot put (© AFP / Getty Images)
World shot put champion Joe Kovacs added one centimetre to his lifetime best at the Tucson Elite Classic in Tucson on Thursday (18), winning with 22.57m.
The 27-year-old launched his winning effort in the first round and then followed it with 22.10m in round two, a foul in round three and a 22.26m heave in round four. Happy with his day’s work, he passed his final two attempts.
The Olympic silver medallist won by almost two metres as USA’s Josh Freeman placed second with 20.58m.
“It was great to start 2017 with a PB on the first throw,” said Kovacs after consolidating his position at eighth on the world all-time list. The list time anyone threw farther than Kovacs’s 22.57m was back in 2003.
USA’s Monique Riddick won the women’s shot put with a throw of 18.55m to overtake Canada’s Brittany Crew in the penultimate round. Crew broke the Canadian record with 18.47m.
US record-holder Gia Lewis-Smallwood won the women’s discus with 62.91m, while 18-year-old Turner Washington – son of 1999 world champion Anthony Washington – won the boys’ high school discus (1.62kg weight) with 69.45m.
Jon Mulkeen for the IAAF
