Konstandinos Gatsioudis

Konstandinos Gatsioudis 2001 in Edmonton

Konstandinos Gatsioudis (also Konstadinos , Konstantinos or Kostas; Greek Κωνσταντίνος Γκατσιούδης , born December 17, 1973 in Didymoticho ) is a former Greek athlete who appeared as a javelin thrower in the early 1990s and was still successful after 2000. He won medals three times in a row at world championships.

His personal best is 91.69 m, shot in 2000 in Kuortane .

He started for the following clubs:

• Spartacus of Didymoteichon
• Panellinios Athens (from 1998)

He is 1.88 m tall and weighed 94 kg during his playing days.

Career

The 18-year-old had his first international appearance in 1992 at the Junior World Championships in Athletics in Seoul , where he won the bronze medal with a throw of 75.92 m behind the Finn Aki Parviainen (gold with 76.34 m) and the German Boris Henry (silver with 76.04 m) won. In the same year he was victorious at the Balkan Games in Sofia with 77.04 m.

The 1993 World Championships in Stuttgart and the 1994 European Championships in Helsinki came too early for Gatsioudis. Both times he missed the required qualifying distance of 81 meters with 76.70 m and 78.56 m respectively.

The 1994 European Championships should remain his only European Championships. He did not start in Munich in 2002 , although he was second in the world's best list with 91.23 m.

He was very unlucky at the Olympic Games . 1996 in Atlanta he threw in the qualification with 87.12 m personal best. With this distance he would have won the bronze medal ahead of the Finn Seppo Räty . In the final, however, he did not get beyond 81.46 m and ended up in 10th place.

Four years later he led the annual world best list with 91.69 m. At the 2000 Games in Sydney , however, he stayed in the final with 86.53 m a good five meters under this width and only came in sixth. The 88.41 m thrown in the qualification would not have been enough for a medal, since the third-placed, Russian Sergei Makarow, threw 88.57 m.

Meanwhile, Gatsioudis achieved medals at world championships , not least because he was able to improve all three times in the final. He won at the 1997 World Championships bronze at the 1999 World Championships silver and in the 2001 World Championships bronze again. In 1999 and 2001 he was defeated by the Finn Aki Parviainen with throws of 89.18 m and 89.95 m respectively, but in 1999 he was able to place himself in front of Jan Železný, the 2001 gold medalist, who he won the Grand Final in the same year Prix ​​in Munich was again able to defeat (89.84 m compared to 87.71 m):

• 1997 World Cup in Athens : 1st Marius Corbett (RSA) with 88.40 m, 2nd Steve Backley (USA) with 86.80 m, 3rd Kostas Gatsioudis with 86.64 m (Qualif .: 83.32 m)
• 1999 World Championships in Seville : 1st Aki Parviainen (FIN) with 89.52 m, 2nd Kostas Gatsioudis with 89.18 m (qualification: 89.18 m), 3rd Jan Železný (CZE) with 87.67 m.
• 2001 World Championships in Edmonton : 1st Jan Železný with 92.80 m, 2nd Aki Parviainen with 91.31 m, 3rd Kostas Gatsioudis with 89.95 m (Qualif .: 87.81 m).

Even in competitions for the European Cup , Gatsioudis was able to place himself several times and even book a victory:

• 1997 in Munich : Second with 86.10 m behind Steve Backley with 86.86 m
• 1999 in Paris : third with 84.87 m behind the German Raymond Hecht with 86.05 m and the Russian Sergei Makarow with 85.44 m
• 2000 in Gateshead : 2nd with 84.56 m behind Sergei Makarow with 89.92 m
• 2001 in Bremen : Winner with 88.33 m ahead of Sergei Makarow with 83.24 m

Gatsioudis won five national championships:

year	1992	1993	1999	2000	2001
Width (m)	80.30	76.46	84.28	87.89	88.61

In Dimitrios Polymerou , he had a strong competitor in his own country. His biggest win over him in the truest sense of the word was at the 1997 Mediterranean Games in Bari , where he threw an excellent 89.22 m, while Polymerou only reached 77.88 m.

His performance development shows that he reached the zenith of his ability towards the end of his career:

year	1992	1994	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002
Width (m)	80.30	83.62	87.12	89.22	88.13	89.57	91.69	91.27	91.23

Web links

• Konstadinos Gatsioudis in the database of World Athletics (English)
• Athlete portrait on sporting-heroes.net (engl.)
• Athlete portrait on athletix.org (engl.)
• Gatsioudis allows room for improvement , article by Paul Halford on canthrow.com, May 29, 2001