Daniel Ståhl has had a sluggish start to the season.
But in Turku he showed championship form.
He won the gala in Turku – with a giant throw of over 70 meters.
Daniel Ståhl is one of our big gold jumps when the World Athletics Championships are decided in the USA later this summer. He comes from a season where he won Olympic gold and was a total superior touch all the time, but during the spring it has been heavier.
Strong form message
The Diskus star had ten straight races without a single throw over 70 meters, and had also gone three straight Diamond League races without winning. But when he came to Turku, and the Paavo Nurmi Gamesi gala, he showed class.
In Ståhl’s very first round, he struck with a monster throw of over 70 meters. In total, it measured 70.62 meters – which is a new year’s best for Ståhl. It was also the third best in the world this year.
– It felt clean, there was good pressure in the throw and that is what I have been working on in recent weeks. To get this extreme pressure on a competition and be able to take in and throw properly, says Ståhl to SVT.
Won the competition
Only world setter Kristjan Ceh has thrown longer this year – also on two occasions. The Slovenian, who is Ståhl’s new, big rival, was also in the competition in Turku, but was not even close to being able to threaten Ståhl, who thus seems to have punctured the form just in time for the World Cup to start in exactly one month.
That Ståhl came over 70 meters and won the competition was not entirely unimportant, he says himself. He also believes that it was not an optimal throw.
– I feel that I have more in my body, it was not a hit. I have a lot more in me, it’s fun, absolutely wonderful. It was a fantastic evening here, Turku is like my second hometown. The mother is from Finland and half the family lives here, absolutely wonderful.
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