From Bislett to Budapest

The men's hammer throw-competition during this year's Oslo Bislett Games will hopefully be a foretaste of the biggest event for the Hungarian home crowd when we get to this summer's World Championships in Budapest. Although it is not a Wanda Diamond League event at this year's meeting, the starting field oozes world class and which can almost be considered a dress rehearsal for the World Championships.

Bislett general Steinar Hoen has added hammer throw to this year’s Oslo Bislett Games. Quite natural when one of the Bislett clubs has one of the biggest profiles in the event in the form of Eivind Henriksen.

Silver medalist from the Olympics in Tokyo, and double bronze medalist from the World and European Championships in 2022.

As Bislett has Henriksen, Budapest has Bence Halasz – born just over ten miles from the Hungarian capital. With third place from the World Championships in 2019, and a silver medal from last year’s European Championships, the former junior world champion is one of the great hopes for the host nation of this year’s World Championships.

As we said, the Oslo Bislett Games will be a foretaste of the World Championships in Budapest, with six of the seven best in the world ranking in place.

Wojciech Nowicki from Poland tops the ranking. The Olympic winner from 2021 took gold in last year’s European Championships and silver in the World Championships. Has 82.52 as a personal best and a total of nine championship medals from the Olympics, World and European Championships.

Number two on the ranking list is his compatriot Pawel Fajdek. He can point to five World Championships golds – that is all from 2013 to 2022, one European Championships gold and a personal record of 83.93. And like Nowicki, he has a total of nine championship medals.

Next on the list is Halasz, with a personal best of 80.92, followed by Henriksen with 81.58.

The last two top-ranked participants in place are the American Rudy Winkler in fifth place, with 82.71 as his best result and a sixth place from last year’s World Championships, as well as Ukrainian Mykhaylo Kokhan in seventh place with a personal best of 80.78 and several top six places from international championship.

A place has also been found for our own Thomas Mardal and we look forward to see if the 26-year-old from Gloppen, with 76.74 from the World Championships last summer, can approach the 80-metre mark.

A little fun fact about Mardal: We hardly think any hammer throwers at the +75 level can match Mardal’s personal record in 100 meters which reads 10.97 – in addition to the fact that he has run 10.79 with 0.1 second meter too much wind for the result to be approved.