The Untouchable Hammer Throw Record
Yuriy Sedykh's hammer throw record is one of the best in all of sports, writes Brendan I. Koerner in ESPN The Magazine.
THE SOUND OF 100,000 HANDS CLAPPING has been messing with Yuriy Sedykh's mind all day. Three times he has stepped into the throwing circle at Neckar Stadium in Stuttgart, West Germany, to fling the 16-pound ball-and-wire contraption known as the hammer. And three times the beefy Soviet has failed to wrest the lead from Sergey Litvinov, his teammate and most bitter rival, who shattered the European championships record on his first attempt. Sedykh is unnerved by the steady thwack-thwack-thwack that builds in volume as the crowd anticipates his every throw. He wishes he could yell at the 50,000 fans to shut up and let him concentrate.
