Pawel Fajdek and Mo Farah had weekends to savour as they showed their summer season is far from over.
In front of 20,000 fans at the 5th Kamila Skolimowska Memorial under the closed roof at Warsaw’s National Stadium, Fajdek produced a national record and the best hammer throw in the world for six years on Saturday.
Then, 24 hours later, Farah delighted the packed house at the IAAF Diamond League in Birmingham by breaking a British record for the Two Miles that was almost 36 years old.
Whether or not he was fuelled by revenge after missing out on gold at the European Athletics Championships in Zurich, Fajdek left even himself surprised when he won with a distance of 83.48m as part of a superb series at this European Athletics Outdoor Area Permit meeting.
No athlete has thrown this far since Belarusian Ivan Tsikhan reached 84.51m in July 2008.
As world champion Fajdek said: 'For me this is not logical, I am shocked. I did not train at all after Zurich and now this.'
Fajdek’s best throw came in the second round in beating Hungary’s Krisztian Pars, the newly-crowned European champion.
Pars had a best of 78.56 as Zurich silver medallist Fajdek triumphed on a day when all his throws were over 80 metres with the others being: 80.19m, 83.37m, 82.16m, 81.57m and 81.46m.
In the women’s event, Fajdek’s teammate Anita Wlodarczyk had her eye on Betty Heidler’s world record of 79.42m but it was not to be.
Yet she still won the event with 77.66m, a meeting record, with German Heidler second with 76.26m.
In the men’s discus, the outcome was the other way around as Germany beat Poland, with Robert Harting’s 67.40m enough for victory ahead of Piotr Malachowski with 65.30m. The result was just the same the next day at the IAAF Diamond League in Birmingham as Harting triumphed with 67.57m this time from Malachowski with 64.98m.
Staying in Warsaw, Mariya Kuchina and Kamila Licwinko shared world indoor high jump gold in Sopot in March but this time it was the Russian who triumphed alone.
Kuchina won with a best clearance of 1.97m, with Ukraine’s Oksana Okuneva second with 194 and Poland’s Licwinko third with 1.91m.
In England, though the Two Miles was no part of the Diamond League series, it brought the crowd to their feet as Farah won in 8:07.85 to smash the British record time of 8:13.51 that Steve Ovett had set in September 1978.
After looking like his summer might be ruined by illness, Farah has turned it around in style, winning the 5000m and 10,000m double in Zurich and now achieving this mark.
It was some day, too, for Lynsey Sharp, who won silver in Zurich, as she beat Kenya’s world champion Eunice Sum in the 800m.
Sum had triumphed at the Commonwealth games where Sharp was also second but the Scottish star had the better of her this time to win by 0.28 in 1:59.14.
Britain's European gold and silver medallists Martyn Rooney and Matthew Hudson-Smith found Olympic, world and Commonwealth champion Kirani James too strong in the men’s 400m.
The Grenadian won in 44.59 as Rooney finished third in 45.25 and Hudson-Smith seventh in 46.60.
In Germany, Airine Palsyte, of Lithuania, produced the performance of her life to win the title at the 36th Eberstadt high jump with a brilliant 1.98m - and she beat a high-class field in the process.
Spain’s European champion Ruth Beitia was sixth with 1.94m as Croatian Ana Simic, who won bronze in Zurich, was second on countback with 1.96m from Germany’s Marie-Laurence Jungfleisch.
Staying in Germany, David Storl, fresh from his glory in Zurich, launched a meeting record of 21.29m to win the shot put at the 19th Throwing Meet in Bad Kostritz. Teammate Thomas Rohler was equally outstanding in the javelin with 86.74m, the eighth best distance in the world this year for an athlete who was already third on the European Athletics rankings with 86.99m from Glasgow in July.
Jessheim was the venue for the Norwegian Championships which saw Jaisuma Saidy Ndure win the men’s 100m in 10.22 and Ezinne Okparaebo take the women’s title in 11.36.
THE WEEK AHEAD
There are 34 meetings this week. Visit our European Athletics Calendar for all the details.