4. ANITA WLODARCZYK
Known for the ease with which she breaks World Records (WR), Anita Wlodarczyk occupied the 3rd position on our rankings last year but has moved a notch lower this year due to the fact that several athletes also set WRs in the course of the 2016 Athletics season. However, this does not in any way diminish the accomplishments of the Polish thrower who has since become the face of the women’s Hammer throw and has kept a clean slate since June 2014.
Having won the World title at the 2015 Beijing World Championships in a Championship Record (CR) of 80.85m, the 31-year old was keen on winning the Olympics with a WR. Her expectations were not farfetched, considering her dominance in the event. And true to prediction, Wlodarczyk shattered her previous WR of 81.08m to set a superior mark of 82.29m, becoming the first woman to throw beyond 80m three times in a competition.
The reigning World Champion went on to compete at the Skolimowska Memorial in Warsaw 13 days later. But this time around, Wlodarczyk stunned even herself as she set the sixth WR of her career, throwing a new distance of 82.98m. As such, she now owns nine of the Top 10 marks in history, and is regarded as the greatest women’s Hammer thrower of all time.
She said, “I was saying that I want to improve the record and I was able to keep my word. Maybe I could have broken it in the first round but I like to improve step by step and play with the emotions. Yes, it was close to 83m, but let’s save something for the next season.” Another positive development ensured that Wlodarczyk ended the season on a high.
Having claimed Silver at London 2012, she was retroactively awarded GOLD in October 2016, after Russia’s Tatyana Lysenko was stripped of the medal after testing positive in reanalysis of her stored doping samples, bringing Wlodarczyk’s tally of Olympic GOLD medals to two. The WR holder was a finalist for the IAAF Female Athlete of the Year award, which was eventually won by Ethiopia’s Almaz Ayana.
