The 2019 European Throwing Cup will be held in Samorin, Slovakia for the first time from 9-10 March.
This will be the second major continental championships that Samorin, which is situated on the River Danube to the south-east of the capital Bratislava, has played host to in recent years after staging the SPAR European Cross Country Championships in December 2017. The event will be staged again at the country’s renowned x-bionic sphere, a certified Olympic training centre and the country’s official Olympic training centre for 27 sports.
The event first took place in Nice, France in 2001 under its initial alias of the European Winter Throwing Challenge. Last year’s event was the biggest to date with 291 athletes from 40 countries taking part in Leiria, Portugal which became the first city to stage the event on three separate occasions.
The highlight of last year’s event was the men’s javelin which featured world champion Johannes Vetter who added seven metres to the championship record with 92.70m. There were also victories for reigning world hammer champion Pawel Fajdek from Poland in the hammer and from world indoor champion Anita Marton from Hungary in the shot put.
There is likely to be some domestic success in both the men’s and women’s hammer competition. Marcel Lomnicky, who finished second to his training partner Fajdek in Leiria in March, will be looking to go one better on home soil next month while veteran Martina Hrasnova, the world bronze medallist from 2009, will be among the favourites for the title.
As well as the eight senior competitions, there will also be U23 competitions in all of the events as well. Athletes targeting the European Athletics U23 Championships in Gavle, Sweden will be looking to seal early season qualifying marks ahead of those championships in Samorin.