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World Athletics Final Preview: Throwing Events

Posted September 10th, 2008 at 9:30 AM by Jesse Squire

Section: News & Results, Track & Field, Rankings, World Standings

On Saturday and Sunday the IAAF World Athletics Final will be held in Stuttgart. Coverage will be live on both the new Universal Sports TV channel and its website, UniversalSports.com (formerly WCSN.com). The webcast will be free of charge.

The third in our preview series covers the throwing events. The IAAF’s preview ishas been posted, and here is how the World Athletics Final will affect our World Points Standings.

Men’s Shot Put: This one will go down to the wire. Olympic champ Tomas Majewski, World Indoor champ Christian Cantwell, and Olympic Trials champ Reese Hoffa are separated by just three points. The World Final will determine their season-ending rankings.

Men’s Discus: Olympic medalists Gerd Kanter and Virgilijus Alekna are just seven points apart. An outright victory by Alekna would give him the top spot; otherwise Kanter must finish at least two places behind him.

Men’s Hammer: Kristian Pars has a comfortable 28-point lead and cannot be caught, and #2 Primož Kozmus also has an untouchable lead on third.

Men’s Javelin: The top three places—Andreas Thorkildsen, Tero Pitkämäki, and Tero Järvenpää—are unchangeable.

Women’s Shot Put: While Valerie Vili has put together an undefeated season with two wins over Nadzeya Ostapchuk, they are still close enough that Vili must finish in the top three in order to assure a final #1 ranking.

Women’s Discus: Olympic champion Stephanie Brown-Trafton has such a commanding lead that she merely has to record a mark in the World Final to retain her #1 ranking.

Women’s Hammer: Ypsi Moreno has clinched the top ranking, and if Olympic champ Aksana Menkova competes she will move into the second position.

Women’s Javelin: Barbora Špotáková has a fifteen-point lead on Christina Obergföll, so if Obergföll wins while Špotáková throws poorly the #1 ranking will change. However, Špotáková has never faltered in a championship and Obergföll has never come up big, so consider this event to be already over.

Jesse Squire also posts at The Track & Field Superblog.