Yuriy Sedykh set the existing world hammer record back in 1986 http://www.elatleta.com/foro/showthread.php?115970-Fotos-atletismo-cl%C3%A1sico. |
These are another times. Nowadays all the highlights
in a track and field broadcasting are concentrated in the running events. In
the last couple of years we have witnessed how East Africans have massively
smashed the marathon standards, while Jamaican super star Usain Bolt continues
with his impressive sprinting career. Now and then we have a glimpse of
Isinbayeva’s or Vlasic’s performances but anyway jumpers and throwers are often
forgotten in this highly marketable athletic world. Specially, the standouts of
the hammer, who have not been included in the fashionable Diamond League, in the
same way they were left out of the athletic Grand Prix before, feel
particularly neglected, to the point they have manifested publicly their
discomfort. (1) Relegated to compete hours before the official opening of the
meetings or during the previous day, hammer throwers do not enjoy TV coverage
and perform before a dozen of spectators or an empty stadium. Those
circumstances prevent most of them from acquiring some public notoriety and
having access to sponsors. If we ad the prizes for the winners in the parallel Hammer
Throw Challenge are inferiors to the ones bestowed at the Diamond League, we
can realise the athletes in the discipline who are able to make a living of
their track and field earnings can be counted on the fingers of one hand. The
rest must take a full or part time job, which hindrance their preparation for
one of the most difficult events in track and field, which technical complexity rivals pole vault.
Those are some of
the reasons why hammer throw is these days in plain decline. Old Koji Murofushi
could still clinch gold in Daegu over contenders ten or fifteen years younger,
while another illustrious veteran, Libor Charfreitag, triumphed at the 2010
European Champs, thanks to being the only one beyond 80m, just like Olympic
champion Primoz Kozmus the precedent year in Berlin . Not long time ago, in Osaka 2007,
there were still seven athletes over that barrier and five at the Olympic Games
in Beijing . The
two men who are more consistent in the 80m range, Krisztian Pars and Aleksey Zagorniy,
lack stability when it matter most and this is also the case of upcoming stars
who have to guarantee the succession in the specialty as Pavel Kryvitski.
Back in the 1970s
and 1980s we knew an altogether different panorama, when the hammer throw event
reached its peak and the two colossi of the specialty, Yuriy Sedykh and Sergey
Livinov, offered us memorable duels. It was the time of the Cold War when the USSR and the USA were the two powerhouses in the
world, contending in every matter from politics to culture and sport. The Soviet Union , despite the Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin,
eventually lost the Space Race when Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the moon in
the summer of 1969. Nevertheless Soviets accomplished one of their most
overwhelming triumphs over their archrivals with the highly successful
development of the national school of hammer throwing, which swept the full
Olympic podium in 1976, 1980, 1988 and 1992; and likely only boycott cut the
streak in Los Angeles .
Those sportive victories were a source for exultant patriotism and national
pride inside the USSR .
Furthermore, Soviets
were especially keen of mastering an event which had been ruled by Americans
for a long time, particularly by the ones of Irish extraction, since the sport
was for them an ancestral specialty, present in the Old Celtic Games, where
competitors tossed rocks affixed to wood handles. (2) In the turn of the
century, John Flanagan, a New York
policeman, opened the streak with his three straight Olympic gold medals. In
two of those occasions, in 1900 and 1904, The United States also won silver and
bronze. Then Pat Ryan set a world record in 1913 which was going to last for 25
years. Then it came the Soviet era, announced by the universal bests of Mikhail
Krivonosov in the mid-fifties, and the Olympic titles of Vasily Rudenkov in
1960 and Romuald Klim four years later.
Sergey Litvinov, winner at the first World Championships and Olympic Games gold medallist in Seoul 1988 http://www.tomsunderground.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/sergey_litvinov-e1323281926286.jpg |
If nowadays’ hammer
throwers lack support and sponsorship, it was not precisely the case in the
time of Sedykh and Litvinov. The USSR invested its endeavours and
huge amounts of money, looking for sportive success. To the remotest places in
the country scouts were sent to spot talented youngsters, who were taught the
rudiments of the discipline and then enrolled into the national system, under
the promise of fantastic rewards as fancy cars, apartments in Moscow or travels to the West. (2) At the
same time scientists were engaged in sport. Through this approach, the laws of
mechanics were applied to the hammer throw, which technical execution became
almost a mathematical equation. (3) Coaches were formed in those principles,
among them the most prominent of all, Anatoly Bondarchuk.
Bondarchuk became
the first man in throwing the implement beyond 75m back in 1969, and three
years later crowned himself Olympic champion in Munich , when he was already in his thirties.
However his biggest contribution to his country was in his role of national
coach for the likes of Yuriy Sedykh, Sergey Litvinov and Juri Tamm. Still being
an active athlete, Bondarchuk started in the mid-seventies in this task,
introducing remarkable technical innovations, which brought the event to a new
level. (4) In previous years newly manufactured implements, smooth-soled shoes
and concrete circles had contributed to marks improvement. Now, with the
addition of more efficient techniques, the 80m barrier seemed suddenly
attainable and it was Boris Zaichuk the first athlete reaching the distance the
9th July 1978 in
a meeting in Moscow . “Average athletes in 1972 had no
acceleration with the hammer,” states Bondarchuk in a recent interview. “Maybe
this was because they had no special strength for hammer. From 1970-1976,
I believed the athlete (me specifically) needed to train maximal
strength. After this I recognized that the athlete only needed a base of
strength. Before I thought athletes would need a 300k full squat for 80-84 meters , now I know
that they only need 200-250k quarter squat. Before I thought athletes
needed 150k+ snatch for 80-84
meters , now only need to snatch bodyweight for this
throw. Before I think maybe 3.50 standing long, now only need 3 -3.15 metres
long. This is because the specific throwing training has progressed over
30 years. Now, I realize that the athlete does not need maximal strength but
special dynamic strength. Special strength is much more important and has
a much higher rate of transfer into the specific throw. In the 1960's, I
had a friend that squatted 320k, cleaned 200k, had a fast 100m but only threw 17.20 in the shot
put. Later I realized that the maximal strength training does not have a
high rate of transfer and my friend was one of many examples for this.” (5)
Anyway for Bondarchuk and the Soviet school there was not a universal
method for training the hammer, a secret formula of success. Neither was a standardised
way of technical performance in a competition. It depended on the
characteristics of every athlete as proves the quite different approaches of
Yuriy Sedykh and Sergey Litvinov, the foremost members of the golden age of
Soviet hammer throwing.
Sedykh, born the 11th June1955 in Novotcherkassk , Ukraine ,
did not enter sport until he was 12 years old. His first coach was Vladimir
Volovik. Measuring 1,85m and weighting 109kg, he was neither the bigger nor the
stronger of the hopeful hammer throwers in the country, but had instead a
willingness and perseverance never seen before by Volovik. (6) He also owned a
stunning coordination of movements: he understood his body and knew how to
obtain the maximum efficiency of it. Enrolled by the Soviet Army, it was with
his first coach that Sedykh developed his famous technique, arguably the best
of its time, which was simply a practical development of the law of inertia:
Yuriy just pushed the ball left and let the hammer turn him, to execute what he
called “the dance.” Also, thanks to his speed inside the circle and technical
perfection, he had enough with three rotations, instead of the usual four. In
1973, Sedykh joined in Kiev
Olympic champion Anatoly Bondarchuk, now in charge of new duties. The future hammer
throw guru, as he recognises, did not think, the first time he saw Yuriy, he
owned the conditions to send one day the implement beyond 86 metres , but soon
realised his new pupil was once-in-a-lifetime talent: “He took only six months
to adjust to training, after which technical development can begin. Lots of
athletes need three, four, even five years." (2) In only one year working
with Bondarchuk, Sedykh had already beaten the world junior record and being
only 21 he clinched the gold medal at Montreal Olympics, beating experienced
compatriots Aleksey Spiridonov and coach Bondarchuk. In an event which requires
years of practise to acquire a consistent technique and usually athletes do not
fight the Olympic title until they are in their thirties, Sedykh, thanks to his
capacities, won it still being nearly a newcomer.
Sergey Litvinov, born the 23rd January Sedykh, born the 11th June
It was precisely the intense rivalry of Sedykh and
Litvinov for a whole decade which raised the hammer throw to stratospheric
levels never reached again in the history of the event. Three years older than
his long time contender, the former arrived first. After his victory in Montreal , Sedykh grabbed
the first of three straight European titles in 1978; then smashed the world
record in May 1980 in
Leselidse in a hardly fought contest against Juri Tamm. Just one week
afterwards, Litvinov made his breakthrough in the international scene,
improving that record in more than one metre (81.66m). Nevertheless, when it
mattered most, Sedykh dominated overwhelmingly the hammer final, defended his
Olympic title and recovered the universal record in Moscow (81.80), over challengers Litvinov and
Tamm. Almost perfect technically and able to perform to his best in every big occasion,
Yuriy usually got the better of Sergey, who was not as good to hold the
pressure and lacked consistency in major championships. The two times Olympic
champion produced another easy victory at the 1982 Europeans. However,
Litvinov stroke back, in a big upset at the inaugural World Championships in Helsinki , just some
months after breaking the 84-meter barrier. Both absent in Los Angeles Olympic
Games, where Finn Juha Tiainen won the gold, throwing just over 78 metres , the marvellous
duo delivered yet another sensational clash in Cork, Ireland, that year. In the
historical hometown of hammer throwing, the lucky spectators had the pleasure
to witness what was arguably the best competition ever in the discipline. No
less than five times the world record was smashed that day by either Sedykh or
Litvinov, until the former got to win the contest with a last throw of 86.34m. Two
years later at the European Champs in Stuttgart came a last improvement by
Yuriy, who set the still existing record (86.74), beating Litvinov (85.74) and
Igor Nikulin (82.20) in the process. That evening the winner averaged 85.78m in
his six throws in the final. Litvinov defended his world title in Rome , in a competition without Sedykh and also got the
better of his lifelong rival at the Olympic Games in Seoul . Age seemed to be taking its toll in
Yuriy but he still got some energy left to grab his first gold medal at a World
Championships in Tokyo
1991, before passing the baton to Andrey Abduvaliyev.
After retirement, both Sedykh and Litvinov have
continued in hammer throwing through coaching. After the collapse of the USSR , Yuriy went to live to France , where
he took in charge the Racing Club de Paris athletes. On the other hand, Sergey
has been training with sensational success Belarus throwers, including Ivan
Tsikhan, Vadim Devyatovski and female Olympic champion in Beijing Aksana
Miankova. Tsikhan, whose physical constitution and explosiveness can be easily
related to his coach’s, came tantalisingly close to Sedykh's world record in
2005, missing it by just 1
centimetre . Interestingly Litvinov’s son is currently an
accomplished hammer thrower and also is Sedykh’s teen daughter Alexia, who
under French flag won the gold medal at the Youth Olympic Games in Singapore . Finally,
hammer guru Anatoly Bondarchuk shows no symptoms of tiredness, four decades
after he began coaching. Nowadays his current residence is in British Columbia,
Canada, and his teachings have been decisive in the exploits of shot put silver
medallist in Daegu Dylan Armstrong, Sultana Frizell, who recently broke the
national record and the 75m barrier, and the last American over 80 metres , Kibwe Johnson.
Yuriy Sedykh in company of her wife Natalya Lisovskaya and daughter Alexia http://www.turnir.ua/articles/article-1076-YUriy-Sedyih-i-ego-nepobityiy-mirovoy-rekord |