A crowd of over 18,000 saw Poland’s three recently crowned world champions all triumph again at the 6th Kamila Skolimowska Memorial in Warsaw’s National Stadium on Sunday.
This European Athletics Outdoor Area Permit meeting again brought the best out of hammer gold medallists Pawel Fajdek and Anita Wlodarczyk and discus thrower Piotr Malachowski.
It was tight schedule for Fajdek, who had competed the day before in Rieti where he had won with 80.96m.
And back home he went even further with victory from the third round with 81.99m as he beat Hungary’s Olympic champion Krisztian Pars (78.73m) and Tajikistan’s Dilshod Nazarov (74.12m).
Fajdek also reached 80.64m in round five in what has been a memorable year for an athlete who has the top 13 throws in the world, led by his 83.93m from Szczecin last month.
The men’s and women’s competition were held together and as Wlodarczyk won with 78.16m with her fifth throw, she broke the meeting record, with Germany’s Kathrin Klaas (69.80m) in second and America Amber Campbell (68.34m) in third.
Like Fajdek, the 2015 outdoor season has been one to remember for Wlodarczyk, who at the start of August broke the world record when she became the first woman to smash 80m with 81.08m in Cetniewo and then did it again in Beijing (80.85m).
Among all the great performances on Sunday, their success was a fitting tribute to Kamila Skolimowska, Poland’s 2000 Olympic hammer champion who died unexpectedly at the age of just 26 back in 2009.
In the men’s discus, Estonia’s Gerd Kanter (63.34m) had led from the first round but Poland’s third world champion Malachowski saved his best for last as he won with 63.71m as his countryman Robert Urbanek (62.96m) finished third.
The high jump was also held simultaneously in one pit and saw further glory for a Beijing champion as Russia’s Mariya Kuchina beat Poland’s Kamila Licwinko on countback after both cleared 1.94m.
Kuchina went over that height on her second go, Licwinko on her third and the pair both then failed at 1.98m ahead of Estonia’s Eleriin Haas (1.78m).
The men’s title went to European champion Bogdan Bondarenko, of the Ukraine, with 2.26m, ahead of the Bahamas’ Donald Thomas (2.22m) and Poland’s Sylwester Bednarek (2.18m).
Poland’s successful day also brought a fine win and meeting record for Piotr Lisek (5.64m) in the pole vault as he beat Canada’s world champion Shawn Barber (5.54).
Lisek shared third place in Beijing and here he went over the winning height at the second attempt to triumph with fellow Pole Robert Sobera in third (5.54m).
The women’s shot put brought another meeting record as Poland’s Paulina Guba (17.86m) won from teammate Agnieszka Maluskiewicz (16.20m) while in the men’s event, their double Olympic champion Tomasz Majewski (20.32m) was leading until American Joe Kovacs (20.44m) snatched victory in the final round.
On the track, Türkiye’s new sprint star Ramil Guliyev (10.26) was second in the 100m behind Jamaican Asafa Powell (10.01) as was Croatia’s Andrea Ivancevic (13.01) in the 100m hurdles won by the USA’s Lolo Jones (12.87).