European Athletics Championships 1969 / Men's discus throw

9th European Athletics Championships
discipline	Men's discus throw
city	Athens
Stadion	Karaiskakis Stadium
Attendees	20 athletes from 12 countries
Competition phase	September 16 (qualification) September 17 (final)
Medalist
gold	Hartmut Losch ( GDR )
silver	Ricky Bruch ( SWE )
bronze	Lothar Milde ( GDR )

The Athens Karaiskakis Stadium in 2009

The men's discus throw at the European Athletics Championships in 1969 was held on September 16 and 17, 1969 in the Karaiskakis Stadium in Athens .

In this competition, the throwers from the GDR won two medals, gold and bronze. European champion became the EM -Second of 1966 Hartmut Losch . The Swede Ricky Bruch took second place . The Olympic runner-up in 1968 and European Championship third in 1966 Lothar Milde won bronze.

Records

Existing records

World record	68.40 m	Jay New Years	Reno , USA	18th September 1968
European record	66.48 m	Ludvík Daněk	Long Beach , USA	June 8, 1969
EM record	57.54 m	Witautas Jaras	EM Budapest , Hungary	August 30, 1966

Record improvement

European champion Hartmut Losch improved the existing championship record at these European championships twice:  

• 59.86 m - qualification on September 16
• 61.82 m - final on September 17th

qualification

September 16, 1969, 6:00 p.m.

Twenty participants competed for qualification. The qualification distance for the direct entry into the final was 58.00 m. Since only five athletes exceeded this mark (highlighted in light blue), the final field was filled with the next best placed athletes to thirteen throwers (highlighted in light green). So finally 53.38 m was enough for the final.

It is not entirely clear why thirteen athletes were admitted to the final here - the normal case would be twelve athletes, unless more than twelve throwers had exceeded the qualifying distance or there were identical distances for more than one participant in twelfth place. However, neither was the case here. However, there are different information for the Swede Ricky Bruch. In one source - at Todorf 66 - Bruch is named fifth. At european-athletics.org, however, there is a break among the throwers without a valid attempt. It could be speculated that there were uncertainties about the validity of his attempt, with which he had / would have qualified for the final, and that he was therefore given the right to start in the final as the thirteenth athlete.

space	Surname	nation	Width (m)
1	Hartmut Losch	GDR	59.86 CR
2	Ferenc Tégla	Hungary	58.42
3	Lothar Milde	GDR	58.40
4th	Ludvík Daněk	Czechoslovakia	58.14
5	Ricky Bruch	Sweden	58.00 - see note above
6th	Vladimir Lyakhov	Soviet Union	57.66
7th	Edmund Piątkowski	Poland	56.70
8th	Kaj Andersen	Norway	55.46
9	Günter Schaumburg	GDR	55.36
10	Jaroslav Vidrna	Czechoslovakia	54.54
11	Edy Hubacher	Switzerland	53.88
12	Géza Fejér	Hungary	53.44
13	Jouko Montonen	Finland	53.38
14th	Bill Tancred	Great Britain	53.30 SB
15th	Zbigniew Gryżboń	Poland	50.70 SB
16	Erlendur Valdimarsson	Iceland	49.84 SB
17th	János Murányi	Hungary	49.76 SB
18th	Pete Tancred	Great Britain	48.24 SB
NM	Pentti Kahma	Finland	without space
	Nikolaos Tsiaras	Greece

final

After the vice European
championship in 1966 and fourth place at the 1968 Olympics , Hartmut Losch has now become European champion

September 17, 1969, 4:00 p.m.

space	Surname	nation	Width (m)
1	Hartmut Losch	GDR	61.82 CR
2	Ricky Bruch	Sweden	61.08
3	Lothar Milde	GDR	59.34
4th	Ludvík Daněk	Czechoslovakia	59.30 SB
5	Vladimir Lyakhov	Soviet Union	59.10 SB
6th	Ferenc Tégla	Hungary	58.18
7th	Günter Schaumburg	GDR	57.88 SB
8th	Kaj Andersen	Norway	56.26 SB
9	Jaroslav Vidrna	Czechoslovakia	55.70
10	Géza Fejér	Hungary	55.64 SB
11	Edy Hubacher	Switzerland	54.12 PB
12	Edmund Piątkowski	Poland	53.64
13	Jouko Montonen	Finland	53.46

The results of their individual attempts are available for three throwers from this final:

• Hartmut Losch: 58.14 m - 61.82 m - 58.62 m - x - 57.04 m - 58.54 m
• Ricky Bruch: 57.50 m - 58.82 m - 57.84 m - 60.12 m - 61.08 m - 60.84 m
• Edy Hubacher: 54.12 m - 50.32 m - 51.90 m - not in the final of the top eight, so only three attempts

• 

  For the Olympic runner-up in 1968 Lothar Milde there was bronze

• 

  The 1968 Olympic bronze medalist Ludvík Daněk finished fourth - in 1972 he was Olympic champion

• 

  Edy Hubacher - eleventh in the discus throw / tenth in the shot put

Web links

• European Athletics Championships - Athens 1969 from european-athletics.org, accessed June 11, 2019
• Men Discus Throw European Championship 1969 Athens on todor66.com, accessed June 11, 2019
• Track and Field Statistics, EM 1969 on trackfield.brinkster.net, accessed June 11, 2019
• European Athletics Championships Zurich 2014 - Statistics Handbook , Men Discus Throw European Championship 1969 Athens, p. 408 (PDF, 13,363 kB), in English at european-athletics.org, accessed on June 11, 2019
• Results of all European Athletics Championships - 1969, discus throw men on sportschau.de, accessed on June 11, 2019
• 9th European Athletics Championships 1969 in Athens, Greece from ifosta.de, accessed on June 11, 2019

References and comments

1. ↑ IAAF world records. Discus throw men , accessed June 11, 2019
2. ↑ Progression of the European Outdoor Records, Discus Men , p. 29 (PDF, 271 kB), accessed on June 11, 2019 (French / English)
3. ↑ Men Discus Throw European Championship 1969 Athens on todor66.com, accessed June 11, 2019
4. ↑ European Athletics Championships - Athens 1969 at european-athletics.org, accessed on June 11, 2019