RUMOR: IAAF Hoping to Drop Hammer from Olympics

    R U kidding me? Beach Volley ball and softball CANNOT remain in the Olympics and Hammer Throw is removed. That would be foolhardy. It wouldnt surprise me though because anything the Americans are not winning in they will seek to have it removed. They will soon have the sprints removed...they havent been doing so well in those of late.

    • Official Post
    Quote from Trisha Steidl

    Why would the IAAF want to eliminate any events?
    Would like to know a little more than this simply being “a rumour.” Until then, I will at least throw my hat in the ring of this would be ridiculous. No reason to eliminate hammer and walk events.


    Quote from Ray

    After seeing the bullshit events they just had in the Winter Olympics, they should not even consider dropping walks and hammer.


    Quote from michael

    iaaf confirmed that is is not true, utter nonsense.

    • Official Post
    Quote from R. Anthony

    R U kidding me? Beach Volley ball and softball CANNOT remain in the Olympics and Hammer Throw is removed. That would be foolhardy. It wouldnt surprise me though because anything the Americans are not winning in they will seek to have it removed. They will soon have the sprints removed…they havent been doing so well in those of late.

    There are a number of issues with this thread, and frankly I think that it is not a good move on the part of Throwholics to put this in the public domain without any factual evidence to back it up, and I find it irresponsible. Throwholics has lost a lot of credibility by putting this rumour on this forum.


    Firstly the IOC cannot ban Hammer Throwing from the Olympic Games, they can only make a decision regarding the Sports included and not the events, that is up to the Governing Body, in this case the IAAF. The IOC did vote to remove certain sports such as Wrestling and Baseball in the past, and has also introduced certain other, perhaps more modern sports with great participation and following such as Triathlon. Often these decisions are based on total numbers of competitors (limited to 10,000) and costs. I know they would like to get rid of Equestrian events based on costs of shipping and housing Horses!


    The IOC does not have any control as to what events are held within the various sports, so any rumour would have to be related to the IAAF, and as Garry Hill has said, he would have heard about it if there were any solid basis to this rumour, as I am sure would Koji Murofushi and Adam Nelson who sit on the IAAF Athletes Commission.


    The hammer is an event that is practiced widely around the World, and while there might be an issue regarding safety at some venues, the IAAF would be better placed to look at redesigning the cage to make it safer, as the last attempt to do this was not good, and proved very costly to many stadiums who had to replace cages.


    The other issue regarding the Hammer and the Diamond League, was not that the event was removed from the Diamond League, but rather that it was never in the Diamond League. This went back even further to the IAAF Grand Prix Final event that was traditionally held in Monaco. The issue was specific to Monaco where the stadium actually has the Track surface on the 6th floor of the stadium, and there is a car park beneath it and the grass landing area is not deep enough to take hammers as they would damage the roof of the Car Park below! This also affected the shot put, but they chose to put indoor landing mats on the surface of the grass so that they could go ahead with the event. Unfortunately the Hammer event took place at a separate competition in Szombathely in Hungary.


    This unfortunately gave the organisers of the Diamond League the in that they needed to not include the Hammer in their events, mainly because of the size of the Cage and the restricted viewing of the other events...at least this is what they said, and the separate Hammer Grand Prix was organised! This is a great shame and I hope that this will be changed at some point, but this is largely a Meeting Organiser decision, and for the large part they are not big fans of the Throws in General. All events (other than the Hammer) were supposed to be included in equal numbers in the Diamond League in their original format, but this was removed after a couple of years, so there will always be sprints and distance races but very few Throws included.


    What we need is more personalities and superstars within the Throws, so that they have to include the events. When Thorkildsen was throwing well there was always a Javelin!


    ShaunP

    Quote from ShaunP

    There are a number of issues with this thread, and frankly I think that it is not a good move on the part of Throwholics to put this in the public domain without any factual evidence to back it up, and I find it irresponsible. Throwholics has lost a lot of credibility by putting this rumour on this forum.


    @ShaunP Was it not presented as a rumour? (see headline)
    Something that is backed-up with facts in not a rumor.

    ru·mor     ˈro͞omər/ 1. a currently circulating story or report of uncertain or doubtful truth.

    Quote from ShaunP

    The IOC does not have any control as to what events are held within the various sports, so any rumour would have to be related to the IAAF, and as Garry Hill has said, he would have heard about it if there were any solid basis to this rumour, as I am sure would Koji Murofushi and Adam Nelson who sit on the IAAF Athletes Commission.


    @ShaunPickering. Did the IAAF tell anyone about not including the hammer in the Diamond League when the decided to leave it out?

    @Dirk Walsh Rumourmongering is dangerous and some more care should be employed before publishing some rumours as it can discredit the source of that publication if it has not been thought through and perhaps researched a little bit, rather like criticism.


    @José Sanchez It was not the IAAF that came up with the format of the Diamond League but the meeting promoters themselves, and they were following the precedent that the IAAF had given them in excluding the Hammer from the Grand Prix Final in Monaco which was on the basis of facility limitations, but the door was open. The main problem here is that the Meeting Promoters do not like the Hammer event and are in general uneducated about the Throws events, They do not like big Hammer (or Discus) cages getting in the way of the viewing public, and most will choose to exclude the events rather than look at solutions such as Berlin has done where they have made a special white netting material; which does not restrict the viewing, but unfortunately is not strong enough for the Hammer, or the use of great design of Cages such as the Lance Deal designed "Thunderdome" Discus cage that folds flat in 1 minute so can be taken down immediately after the event. This is the reason they give and choose to have the Javelin and Shot events.
    Of course Koji and Adam have raised their opinions about the lack of Hammer in particular at the highest levels within the IAAF, but it is still down to the meeting promoters as to which events they include so the public has to make their feelings known to them. Is there the demand within the "General Public" for these events....this is always a concern, and this and a general lack of understanding is also why we generally only see highlights of the top 3 throws in the TV coverage.

    @ShaunP sure it might discredit the source. But who knows whats really behind it.
    Better to try to act from the beginning against it until its to late and know one knew about it in the first place.
    based on the reaction here and on other sites and also within the IAAF they see it will not be let down easily without a fight

Participate now!

Don’t have an account yet? Register yourself now and be a part of our community!

Register Yourself Login