Alekna breaks long-standing world record
Lithuanian betters mark in men's discus set by East German Schult in 1986
Mykolas Alekna of Lithuania broke the oldest men’s outdoor world record in track and field on Sunday when he threw the discus 74.35 meters (243 feet 11 inches) in the Oklahoma Throws Series World Invitational in Ramona, Oklahoma.
Competing in what a World Athletics post described as “perfect conditions” when it came to the velocity of the breeze and the direction from which it was blowing, the 21-year-old Alekna unleashed his 74.35 effort on his fifth of six throws to better the previous best of 74.08 (243-0) set by Jurgen Schult of East Germany on June 6, 1986.
The record came a day after 2019 World champion Yaime Perez of Cuba had won the women’s competition in the meet at Millikan Field at Throw Town at 73.09 (239-9), the best mark in the world since 1989.
“We were not that surprised,” said Mohamad Saatara, the throws coach at UC Berkeley, where Alekna is redshirting this season. “It was a great throw and we’re thrilled it happened. But it was the result of a lot of hard work and dedication on his part… It was a historic performance. Schult set that record a long time ago.”
Behind Alekna, Roje Stona of Jamaica and Mika Sosna of Germany produced personal bests of 69.05 (226-6) and 68.96 (226-3) while finishing second and third, respectively, in a deep competition in which eight competitors threw more than 66 meters (216-6).
Alekna, the son of two-time Olympic and World champion Virgilijus Alekna, had moved to 10th on the all-time performer list on April 6 when he opened his season with a personal best of 71.39 (234-2) in the Brutus Hamilton Invitational at Cal. But he topped that mark three times on Sunday, when each of his six throws exceeded 70 meters (229-8) and his best one dropped his father from second to third on the all-time list.
The elder Alekna had thrown a lifetime best of 73.88 (242-5) in 2000, two years before Mykolas was born and about seven weeks prior to winning the first of two consecutive gold medals in the Olympic Games. His World titles came in 2003 and ’05, and he was the top-ranked discus thrower in the world an unprecedented seven times by Track & Field News during his career.
Saatara, who is in his 11th season at Cal, was not at the meet on Sunday, but he watched it via a livestream link. Alekna told him by phone afterward that he was very excited before his first throw due to the atmosphere at the meet, as well as the fact that he had had some of the best warm-up throws of his career.
Once the competition began, Alekna topped his eight-day-old personal best in the first round with a 72.21 (236-11) effort that moved him to fourth on the all-time world list behind Schult, his dad, and Gerd Kanter of Estonia, who threw 73.38 (240-9) in 2006.
He then had a 70.32 (230-8) throw in round two that left him shaking his head a bit.
“He forced his first throw,” Saatara said. “His second throw was better in that regard, but he still needed to improve his movement.”
Alekna did that in the next round when his 72.89 (239-1) effort tightened his hold on fourth on the all-time list.
He followed that with a 70.51 (231-4) throw in the fourth round before his world-record bomb of 74.35 (243-11) in the fifth. He closed his phenomenal series with a 70.50 (231-3) effort in the sixth round.
The average of his six throws was a whopping 71.79 (235-6) and came in a meet that was not initially on his competitive schedule when he and Saatara first started laying out their plans for this season. It is one they hope will find him contending for a gold medal when the athletics portion of the Olympic Games are held in Paris from August 1-11.
Before then, Alekna will try to win his second consecutive title when the European Athletics Championships are held in Rome from June 7-12.
Alekna won the 2022 European Championships in Munich when he upset Kristjan Ceh of Slovenia, who had defeated him for the gold medal in the World Championships in Eugene, Oregon, the previous month. But last year, he finished a distant third behind defending Olympic champion Daniel Stahl of Sweden and Ceh in the World Championships in Budapest, Hungary.
Nonetheless, Saatara described the season as invaluable because it gave Alekna a taste of what he needed to do to throw far on a consistent basis.
“He’s very young,” Saatara added. “The discus is an experienced man’s game. You need a lot of experience under your belt to get really good at it and he’s still gaining that experience.”
Alekna will next compete on Saturday in the Mt. San Antonio College Relays in Walnut, California. But Saatara said he’s not concerned about Alekna feeling pressure to equal or surpass what he accomplished on Sunday.
“It’s just a building process and continuing to move forward,” he said. “I’m more interested in him pushing his averages out there than in him getting one big throw. I’m more interested in his stability. He can be stable at 70 meters and he certainly was today.”
If you would like to get an impression of a 19-year-old Mykolas Alekna during his freshman year at Cal, the following link will take you to a feature about him that was posted prior to the Pac-12 Conference championships in 2022. He had a personal best of 67.68 (222-1) at that time and said his ultimate goal was to join the ranks of his dad, as well as 1992 Olympic champion Romas Ubartas, and 2017 World champion Andrius Gudzius, as Lithuanian discus throwers who have won gold medals in global title meets since the nation of 2.8 million declared its independence from the former Soviet Union in 1990.