At the 2023 World Championships in Athletics in Hungary, the strongest sensation so far came in the hammer throw. The victory of the Canadian Ethan Ketsberg nobody expected even in the most unrealistic dreams. In Budapest, Ketsberg performed magnificently. But Polish journalists, after his triumph, found a “Russian” trace.
Ketsberg knocked out all the favorites
The main contender for the championship title was considered the Olympic champion Wojciech Nowicki. At the world championships he has never won, and where would they be if his compatriot Pavel Faydek won five tournaments in a row?
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Novitsky did everything in his power. But Canadian hammerer Ethan Ketsberg turned out to be stronger. A 21-year-old boy with a stylish mustache and long hair launched a projectile at 81 m and 25 cm, breaking the Canadian record twice during the competition. And it cannot be said that he was lucky, since Ketsberg was also unstoppable in qualifying: 81.18 m.
“Being a world champion with a national record is also a very, very nice feeling. I’m excited,” said the world champion.
Ethan Ketsberg is the youngest ever world champion in the men’s hammer throw.
At 21, he doesn’t have an impressive experience behind him. Perhaps the most resounding achievement of the Canadian can be considered the victory in the Parisian phase of the Diamond League. There he threw a projectile at 77.93 m and did not qualify for the last World Cup, showing a modest 71.27 m in the preliminary starts.
ethan ketsberg
Photo: Patrick Smith/Getty Images
In general, the new champion has never thrown a hammer more than 80m before. Ketsberg bettered his best result by 2.5m, the previous achievement being achieved a month ago at the Canadian Championships (78.73m). According to experts, progress is rapid.
Bondarchuk-Armstrong-Ketsberg
Ketsberg was preparing for the World Championship in Hungary with a curious group of specialists. Perhaps here lies the secret of success.
Ketsberg is trained by Dylan Armstrong. His paths converged in the south of Canada, in the city of Kamloops, where the young athlete moved after graduation.
The hammer thrower’s mentor is a former shot put specialist and competed in the 2008 and 2012 Olympics. Armstrong won a bronze medal for Canada in the shot put at the Beijing Olympics. But the achievement became known only five years later, after the disqualification of the Belarusian Andrei Mikhnevich. In China, the Canadian lost 1 cm against the Belarusian.
Dylan Armstrong, Ethan Ketsberg’s trainer
Photo: Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images
But there is something else that is curious. The Canadian team includes Dr. Anatoly Bondarchuk, who, in turn, was Armstrong’s coach and is a medalist in the hammer throw. On account of the Ukrainian gold and bronze Olympic Games in Munich (1972) and Montreal (1976).
Bondarchuk himself trained the legendary USSR Olympic champion Yuri Sedykh, who holds the current hammer throw world record – 86.74 m (1986).
Poles found “Russian traces”
The Polish edition of Sport.pl states that an interesting puzzle is being put together:
“Everyone says that Sedykh was doping. Grigory Rodchenkov, who organized the doping system in Russia and later told WADA about everything, wrote in his book that Sedykh was very “cocky”. His sample contaminated the testing machine to such an extent that it affected even clean athletes tested after the samples.
The material of Polish journalists also mentions the wife of coach Dylan Armstrong, the Russian shot putter Evgenia Kolodko. And that’s why.
Evgenia Kolodko was a hero in 2012
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“We ourselves feel strange when we investigate and see that, for example, Dylan Armstrong’s wife is doping Evgenia Kolodko from Russia. In 2012, she took third place at the London Olympics in shot put, received silver after Nadezhda Ostapchuk was disqualified for doping, and in 2016 she lost this medal because she herself was a doping dealer, ”Sport writes. pl.
Curious. This is what Armstrong had to say about his wife’s doping.
“I have always been against doping in sport. I also know how terrible it is to wait six years after Beijing 2008 to receive my bronze medal because of doping by one of the participants. Now it is even more difficult for me, because this news concerns both the Olympic movement and a part of me. I am not only a dedicated Olympian, but also a Canadian patriot and loving husband.
I will advise my wife to fully cooperate with WADA and the IOC in this matter so that they make the right decision,” the coach told Inside the Games.
Not only Polish journalists, but also Polish athletes could not cope with the bitterness of defeat. Together they probably had two medals in this discipline.
This is how the coach of the five-time hammer throw world champion Pavel Faydek spoke about the rapid progress and the unexpected victory of Ethan Ketsberg.
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“You can see that I am not familiar with this sport. That progress is space. What can cause it? I don’t know such method. In my opinion, this is suspicious, because even in the history of the former Soviet Union it would have been a phenomenon, cosmic progress,” Sport.pl quotes Shimon Tsiolkovsky.
Conspiracy theorists have entered the chat. Does your reasoning make sense? It is still not clear, and there are no clear arguments to suspect some fantastic doping plan.
Wojciech Nowicki
Photo: Patrick Smith/Getty Images
Wojciech Nowicki, who took another silver, said he now has additional motivation to enter the hammer throwing business.
“The Canadian was phenomenal. I am very impressed and delighted that at such a young age you can shoot so far. I wish him all the best so that he is healthy and continues to pitch like this. Because for me this is additional motivation to fight,” Novitsky said.
Ethan Ketsberg has definitely added fire to the Polish field of hammer throwing. Will it get stronger or fade away? The reference point for the answer is the Olympic Games in Paris.
