Fabbri's national record ends slump
Italian defeats Crouser while winning Diamond League Final in Brussels
Leonardo Fabbri of Italy just missed joining the elite 23-meter club in the men’s shot put in the Diamond League Final in Brussels on Saturday when he broke out of a mild slump while adding three centimeters to his national record.
Competing in cool, but dry, conditions in the Memorial van Damme meeting at King Baudoin Stadium in the Belgian capital, Fabbri unleashed a put of 22.98 meters (75 feet 4¾ inches) in the first round that strengthened his hold on fifth on the all-time performer list and gave him his second victory of the year in nine meetings with Ryan Crouser of the U.S.
Crouser, who holds the world record at 23.56 (77-3¾), finished second at 22.79 (74-9¼), followed by Rajindra Campbell of Jamaica in third at 21.95 (72-0¼).
The 27-year-old Fabbri had raised his outdoor season record to 11-0 when he defeated Crouser in a Diamond League meet in London on July 20, but the American had won six consecutive meetings between them since then.
His first victory in that streak had come in the Olympic Games in Paris on August 3 when he won an unprecedented third gold medal in the event and his sixth win had come in the Gala dei Castelli meet in Bellinzona, Switzerland, last Monday.
While the 31-year-old Crouser had won the Olympic title with a best of 22.90 (75-1¾) and the Gala dei Castelli meet with a mark of 22.25 (73-0), Fabbri had finished fifth in the Olympics with a best of 21.70 (71-2½) and third in Bellinzona with a top mark of 21.36 (70-1).
Prior to the Olympics, the average of Fabbri’s winning marks in his 11 previous meets was 22.59 (74-1½). But that figure was 21.82 (71-7¼) during his six-meet losing skid to Crouser.
Although no one had ever lost while putting the shot as far as Fabbri did in Brussels, Crouser never let him relaxed completely as he had five efforts of 22.39 (73-5½) or farther.
In contrast, Fabbri fouled on three of his final five puts of the competition and his two fair efforts measured 21.98 (72-1½) in the third round and 21.86 (71-8¾) in the sixth.
Crouser fouled in the first round before hitting 22.55 (73-11¾) on his second attempt and 22.39 (73-5½) on his third. Then came his 22.79 (74-9¼) effort in the fourth round and he followed that with puts of 22.66 (74-4¼) in the fifth round and 22.43 (73-7¼) in the sixth.
“It has been an amazing season. But because of that upset during the Olympics, I was very motivated to win that Diamond,” Fabbri said in quotes on the meet website. “This season, my coach and I worked hard on being consistent during the competitions. I know I’m capable to get that 23m, so that’s why I’m a little bit upset with the distance.
“Of course, 22m98 is huge, but next season we’ll hopefully get that 23m. If Ryan stays healthy, we can have a good season together. The competition is strong at the moment, because I thought I could relax a bit today after that opening throw. But then I saw Ryan throwing that 22.79, so I knew I had to keep on pushing during the competition. I just love competing, even though I am tired after a long season.”
The loss snapped a four-meet winning streak for Crouser, but he said he threw “pretty well” and had a “very solid” performance.
“Five times over 22 metres. I just did not have that big throw in me like the one Leonardo Fabbri had,” Crouser said after competing his final meet of the season. “He threw a lifetime best so it was a big throw from him. The level in the shot put was never this high. It definitely pushes me to throw better. I know that when I have an off day, someone is gonna beat me. It keeps me throwing at a high level.”
While Fabbri had the top performance on the men’s side of the meet on Saturday, six other athletes won titles, highlighted by the victories of Emmanuel Wanyonyi of Kenya in the 800 meters and Kenny Bednarek of the U.S. in the 200.
The 20-year-old Wanyonyi came from well back in the home straightway to win the 800 in 1 minute 42.70 seconds and he was followed by Djamel Sedjati of Algeria in 1:42.86 and Marco Arop of Canada in 1:43.25.
Wanyonyi’s time would have been the fastest in the world last year, but the men’s 800 has undergone such as transformation this season that it was only the 26th best mark of the year.
Wanyonyi himself had become the first man ever to run under 1:42 four times during a season this year and his top time of 1:41.11 is tied for the fourth-fastest ever and his second-best time of 1:41.19 left him a hundredth of a second in front of Arop in the Olympic final on August 10 and is the sixth fastest in history.
His 1:41.11 performance in the Athletissima meet in Lausanne, Switzerland, on August 22 was only two tenths of a second off the world record of 1:40.91 set by fellow Kenyan David Rudisha in the 2012 Olympic Games, but a tired-looking Wanyonyi had finished a distant second to Arop when he ran 1:43.23 in the Kamila Skolimowska Memorial in Chorzow, Poland, three days later.
Wanyoni trailed Arop, compatriot Wyclife Kinyamal, and Olympic bronze medalist Sedjati when Arop came through 400 meters in 49.28 seconds in Brussels, and he was still in fourth place when Arop passed 600 meters in 1:15.42, followed by Sedjati and Kinyamal.
The race for first place appeared to be between Arop and Sedjati as the Canadian entered the home straightaway with a small lead and the Algerian looked to have taken control of the race with 40 meters left in the contest as he had moved ahead of Arop. But Wanyonyi had come to life at that moment and he was reeling in Sedjati.
He drew even with him with about 12 meters to go and then went past him a few meters later.
Behind the front three, 1:41.61 performer Gabriel Tual of France placed fourth in 1:43.67, followed by Eliott Crestan of Belgium in 1:43.74 and Kinyamal in 1:44.00.
“It wasn’t very warm today, but even though the race went well,” Wanyonyi said. “The last meters were very hard, they always are. But I worked hard for it and I’m happy that I made it.”
The 25-year-old Bednarek capped the best season of his career with a victory over Olympic champion Letsile Tebogo of Botswana in the 200.
Tebogo had overtaken Olympic silver medalist Bednarek in the final 10 meters of the Weltklasse meet in Zuich on Sept. 5, but there was no repeat of that on Saturday as Bednarek had a small lead over Tebogo as they came out of the curve, held it through the 150-meter mark, and then expanded it during the last 50 meters of the race.
While Bednarek’s winning time of 19.67 was a tenth of a second slower than the 19.57 personal best he ran in Zurich, he had a solid margin of victory over Tebogo, who finished second in 19.80. Alexander Ogando of the Dominican Republic placed third in 19.97.
Tebogo had entered the meet on a six-race winning streak, with five of those wins coming in the 200. But he lacked the horsepower to overtake Bednarek, who has lowered his personal best in the 200 three times this season and also run 9.87 in the 100.
“I’m feeling great,” Bednarek said. “It’s been a really long season: I got the silver medal in Paris, I had a few wins during the season, also a few losses: But being able to end the season with a victory in the DL final, gives me a lot of confidence for next year.
“I think execution-wise I did what I needed to do and I’m happy with the performance. This year I shocked a few people with how fast I was running. I knew that I had it in me, but the last couple of seasons I had some injuries here and there. This season people saw a glimpse of what I can do. It’s not a breakout year, this is something that I was supposed to be doing. Next year I will even be faster and more dangerous.”
The other men who won events on Saturday were Alison dos Santos of Brazil in the 400-meter intermediate hurdles, Anderson Peters of Grenada in the javelin, Gianmarco Tamberi of Italy in the high jump, and Pedro Pichardo of Portugal in the triple jump.
Dos Santos, who won his second consecutive Olympic bronze medal in Paris, had pulled up before the sixth hurdle of his previous race in Zurich. But he was victorious in Brussels as his 47.93-second clocking left him well clear of second-place Abderrahman Samba of Qatar, who ran 48.20, and third-place Rasmus Magi of Estonia, who timed 48.26.
Roshawn Clarke of Jamaica and dos Santos were basically even as they battled for first place while they cleared the seventh flight of hurdles, but dos Santos took control of the race when Clarke had issues negotiating the next barrier. Clarke was unable to recover from his mishap and he finished fifth in 49.08.
Peters, the World champion in 2019 and ’22, won the javelin by the smallest of margins as his best of 87.87 (288-3) was a centimeter farther than the top effort of 87.86 (288-3) from Neeraj Chopra of India. Julian Weber of Germany finished third at 85.97 (282-0).
Peters produced his best throw in the first round and he also had a throw of 87.86 in the sixth round. His victory was his fourth in a row since he finished third in the Olympic Games behind Arshad Nadeem of Pakistan and Chopra.
Tamberi, the reigning World champion, won the high jump at 2.34 (7-8). Oleh Doroshchuk of Ukraine finished second at 2.31 (7-7), followed by Sanghyeok Woo of Korea at 2.25 (7-4½).
Tamberi and Doroshchuk were tied for first place after each of them had cleared 2.31 on their initial attempts at that height. But the Italian won the competition when he cleared 2.34 on his third attempt after Doroshchuk had missed all three of his tries at that height.
Tamberi did not attempt to jump any higher.
Olympic silver medalist Pichardo won the triple jump with a best of 17.33 (56-10¼), followed by Max Heb of Germany at 17.20 (56-5¼) and reigning World champion Hugues Fabrice Zango of Burkina Faso at 17.05 (55-11¼).
Pichardo, the 2021 Olympic champion, bounded 17.23 (56-6½) on his first jump before improving to 17.33 (56-10¼) on his second. He then passed on his third and fourth attempts before fouling on his fifth and leaping 17.05 (55-11¼) on his sixth.
You can click here for complete results for the meet.