Dainis Kūla

Dainis Kūla (2011)

Dainis Kūla (bottom, center) with other Latvian Olympic champions on the pad of a Latvian single postage stamp on the occasion of the 1996 Olympic Games

Dainis Kūlas gold medal from 1980

Dainis Kūla ( Russian Дайнис Элмарович Кула , Dainis Elmarowitsch Kula ; born April 28, 1959 in Tukums ) is a former Latvian javelin thrower who was starting for the Soviet Union Olympic champion .

Life

Dainis Kūla grew up in Ventspils . As a sporty boy, he tried u. a. in cycling, rowing and basketball until he decided to throw a javelin in 1973.

In the run-up to the 1980 Olympic Games, Kūla had surpassed the 90-meter mark with the javelin, so that he was one of the favorites. In the qualification of the games in Moscow, he placed the third largest distance with 85.76 m behind the world record holder Ferenc Paragi from Hungary and Wolfgang Hanisch from the GDR. In the final, before the third attempt, Wolfgang Hanisch led with 86.72 m ahead of Kūla's teammates Heino Puuste and Alexander Makarow . Kūla had two invalid attempts and Paragi had not yet broken the 80-meter mark. While Paragi failed on the third attempt, the spear of Kūla flew very far, but landed very flat. Nevertheless, the attempt was given and Kūla took the lead with 88.88 m. His fourth attempt was measured at 91.20 m, followed by two invalid attempts. Kūla won gold ahead of Makarow, who could improve in the last two attempts, and Hanisch. At the end of the season, Kūla threw 92.06 m.

At the European Championships in 1982 , Kūla finished fourth with 87.84 m. A year later he finished third at the 1983 World Championships . At 85.58 m he was almost four meters behind the world champion Detlef Michel from the GDR, but only two centimeters behind the second-placed American Tom Petranoff . Kūla won the javelin throwing championship of the Soviet Union from 1981 to 1983.

When the new spear was introduced in 1986, Kūla could no longer throw up to the world class. Nevertheless, he continued his career for a long time and took part in international competitions again after Latvia gained independence.

Dainis Kūla is 1.90 m tall and weighed 98 kg at competition times.

literature

• ATFS (Ed.): USSR Athletics Statistics. 1988 brochure
• Ekkehard zur Megede: The Modern Olympic Century 1896-1996 Track and Field Athletics. Berlin 1999 (published by the German Society for Athletics Documentation eV )

Footnotes

1. ^ Peter Matthews: Historical dictionary of track and field . Scarecrow Press, Lanham 2012, ISBN 978-0-8108-6781-9 , p. 239.

Web links

Commons : Dainis Kūla  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Dainis Kūla in the database of World Athletics (English)
• Dainis Kūla in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )