Less than two weeks after Radek Juska broke the long-standing Czech record in the long jump, Tomas Stanek followed suit by bettering the Czech shot put record which dated all the way back to 1987 on Friday night.
Stanek has been in excellent form this season and he will be one of the main attractions when he competes at the Josef Odlozil Memorial in Prague where he will be introduced as the Czech record-holder for the first time after breaking new ground in Schonebeck, Germany on Friday night.
Stanek had already surpassed the 21m line six times indoors and outdoors in 2017 but the 25-year-old added more than half-a-metre to his lifetime best with 22.01m to move to third on the world lists behind world champion Joe Kovacs (22.57m) and Olympic champion Ryan Crouser (22.43m).
Tschechischer NR im Kugelstoßen in Schönebeck: 22,01 m durch Tomas Stanek! @shotputdevil steigert seine Saisonbestleistung auf 21,06 m.
— leichtathletik.de (@dlv_online) June 2, 2017
'I did not expect that, the throw was good; I was thinking well over 21m, but I was not thinking about 22m. That is a big surprise,” commented Stanek, who eclipsed Remigius Machura’s mark by eight centimetres.
Stanek is unbeaten since the European Indoor Athletics Championships in Belgrade and he is expected to notch up his seventh successive win of the outdoor season in Prague tomorrow. In current form, Stanek will also be fancied to reverse the result in Belgrade at the European Athletics Team Championships in Lille where he is likely to cross paths with Poland’s Konrad Bukowiecki again.
Another standout clash in Prague tomorrow evening pits world javelin record-holder Barbora Spotakova against European champion Tatsiana Khaladovich from Belarus.
Now 35 but committed to another full Olympic cycle, Spotakova opened her season with 63.30m at the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene but she finished exactly three metres down on Khaladovich who won with 66.30m.