Gerd Kanter

Gerd Kanter
Gerd Kanter 2012
nation	Estonia
birthday	6th May 1979 (age 41)
place of birth	Tallinn ,  Soviet Union
size	196 cm
Weight	125 kg
Career
discipline	Discus throw
Best performance	73.38 m
society	Pärnu Spordiklubi Altius Tallinna SS Kalev
Trainer	Vésteinn Hafsteinsson
status	resigned
End of career	2018
Medal table
Olympic games 1 × 0 × 1 × World championships 1 × 2 × 2 × European championships 0 × 2 × 1 × Summer Universiade 1 × 0 × 0 ×
Olympic games gold Beijing 2008 68.82 m bronze London 2012 68.03 m  World championships silver Helsinki 2005 68.57 m gold Osaka 2007 68.94 m bronze Berlin 2009 66.88 m silver Daegu 2011 66.95 m bronze Moscow 2013 65.19 m  European championships silver Gothenburg 2006 68.03 m silver Helsinki 2012 66.53 m silver Zurich 2014 64.75 m bronze Amsterdam 2016 65.27 m  Universiade gold Izmir 2005 65.29 m
last change: August 22, 2020

Gerd Kanter (born May 6, 1979 in Tallinn , Estonian SSR , USSR ) is a former Estonian athlete who specializes in discus throwing. At 73.38 meters, he is third on the all-time best list and has exceeded the 70 meter mark 15 times during his career and has won numerous international medals, making him one of the most successful discus throwers of all time.

Sports career and successes

Gerd Kanter gained his first international experience in 2001 when he finished fifth at the U23 European Championships in Amsterdam with a width of 57.73 m. He then took part in the Summer Universiade in Beijing for the first time, but was eliminated there with 57.44 m in qualification. In the following year he took part in the European Championships in Munich for the first time and immediately made it to the final, in which he took twelfth place with a throw at 55.14 m. In 2003 he resigned then at the World Championships in Paris with 56.63 meters in the qualifying and the following year he took the first time at the Olympic Games in Athens in part, in which he came to 60.05 m, but not for a finals handed . He then finished fifth at the World Final in Monaco with 63.28 m.

In the 2005 season, Kanter caught up with the world's best. On April 28th he set a new national record with 70.10 m and then won the silver medal behind the Lithuanian Virgilijus Alekna at the World Championships in Helsinki with a distance of 68.57 m . Following the World Championships, Kanter won the gold medal at the Summer Universiade in Izmir, Turkey with 65.29 m and was second behind Alekna at the World Final with 66.01 m. In the following year he won the silver medal behind Alekna at the European Championships in Gothenburg with 68.03 m and had to admit defeat to the Lithuanian at the World Final in Stuttgart with 68.47 m. The Estonian celebrated his first major success at the 2007 World Championships in Osaka , where he won the gold medal in front of the German Robert Harting with a width of 68.94 m . He also won the World Final for the first time with a throw of 66.54 m. A year later, Kanter became Olympic champion in Beijing. With 68.82 m he threw exactly one meter further than the second-placed Pole Piotr Małachowski in the fourth attempt . He also won the World Final again with 68.38 m.

In 2009 he won the bronze medal behind the German Harting and the Polish Malachowski at the World Championships in Berlin with a width of 66.88 m and thus lost his first competition after more than a year and 28 wins in a row. He then finished fifth at the World Final in Thessaloniki with 65.34 m. The following year he took fourth place at the European Championships in Barcelona with a throw at 66.20 m and, for the first time since 2005, did not win a medal at a major event. In 2011 he secured the silver medal behind the German Robert Harting at the World Championships in Daegu, South Korea, with 66.95 m. At the European Championships in Helsinki in 2012 he also won the silver medal behind Harting with a width of 66.53 m. Then he reached for the Olympic Games in London with 66.39 m the final , where she won with 68.03 meters bronze medal behind Harting and the Iranian Ehsan Hadadi .

He won another bronze medal at the 2013 World Championships in Moscow , where he again had to admit defeat to Harting and Poland's Małachowski with 65.19 m. The following year he won the silver medal behind Harting at the European Championships in Zurich with 64.75 m and then won the Continental Cup in Marrakech with a width of 64.46 m. In 2015 he reached fourth place at the World Championships in Beijing with 64.82 m in the final and in 2016 he won the bronze medal at the European Championships in Amsterdam with a throw of 65.27 m behind Małachowski and the Belgian Philip Milanov . He then took part in the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro for the fourth time and was fifth there with 65.10 m in the final . In 2017 he reached twelfth place at the World Championships in London with 60.00 m and the following year he finished fifth at the European Championships in Berlin with 64.34 m.

Kanter ended his sporting career in mid-September 2018. However, in the following years it started sporadically at national meetings.

Kanter's personal best is 73.38 m. This distance, which is also the Estonian national record, was achieved on September 4, 2006 at the meeting in Helsingborg, Sweden . In this competition he was able to surpass the 70-meter mark four times. The width of 73.38 m was the third longest throw in an official competition in the history of the discus throw. Only Jürgen Schult's world record of 74.08 m from 1986 and Virgilijus Alekna's 73.88 m from 2000 were further.

From 2004 to 2009, 2011 to 2015 and 2019, Kanter was the Estonian champion in discus throw.

Honors

In 2007 he was voted Sportsman of the Year in Estonia. After his Olympic gold medal in 2008, a postage stamp was issued in honor of Gerd Kanter in Estonia.

Web links

Commons : Gerd Kanter  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Gerd Kanter in the database of World Athletics (English)
• Gerd Kanter in the Olympedia.org database (English)
• Website of Team 75 plus , Gerd Kanter's fan club

Individual evidence

1. ^ ARD: Five precious metals for Germany
2. ↑ World Cup in Berlin - Super Harting wins sensational gold . Eurosport . August 19, 2009. Retrieved August 19, 2009.
3. ↑ Top favorites do not stumble; Scrap strong eighth , HDsports.at, August 7, 2012
4. ↑ Silke Bernhart: Flash News of the Day - Farewell: Gerd Kanter follows Robert Harting , Notes, on: Leichtathletik.de, September 12, 2018, accessed September 26, 2018
5. ↑ Silke Bernhart: Flash News of the Day - Daniel Stahl wins Gerd Kanter's Farewell Throws , Notes, on: Leichtathletik.de, from September 14, 2018, accessed September 26, 2018
6. ↑ european-athletics.org, Estonia release postage stamp in honor of Gerd Kanter ( Memento of the original from December 27, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (October 26, 2008)