European Athletics Championships 1978 / Men's Shot Put

12th European Athletics Championships
discipline	Shot Put Men
city	Prague , Czechoslovakia today Czech Republic
Stadion	Evžena Rošického Stadium
Attendees	19 athletes from 12 countries
Competition phase	August 31 (qualifying) September 1 (final)
Medalist
gold	Udo Beyer ( GDR )
silver	Alexander Baryshnikov ( URS )
bronze	Wolfgang Schmidt ( GDR )

The stadium Evžena Rošického of Prague
in 2009

The shot put men at the 1978 European Athletics Championships was on 31 August and 1 September 1978 at the Stadium Evžena Rošického of Prague held.

In this competition, the athletes from the GDR won two medals, gold and bronze. The 1976 Olympic champion and world record holder Udo Beyer became European champion . Alexander Baryshnikov from the Soviet Union won the silver medal in 1976, third in the Olympics . Third place went to Wolfgang Schmidt , who ran second in the 1976 Olympics in the discus throw , and two days later became European champion in his special discipline, the discus throw.

Records

Existing records

World record	22.15 m	Udo Beyer	Gothenburg , Sweden	July 6, 1978
European record
EM record	21.08 m	Hartmut Briesenick	EM Helsinki , Finland	August 13, 1971

Record setting

European champion Udo Beyer equalized the existing EM record of 21.08 m in the final on September 1st.  

doping

There was a doping case in this competition. The Soviet shot putter Yevgeny Mironov , who originally took second place with 20.87 m, was subsequently disqualified for violating the doping regulations. The athletes who were initially placed behind him in the final moved up one rank each.

The German runner-up European champion from 1974 Ralf Reichenbach was also affected by this doping fraud , whose participation in the final was prevented by the doped Jewgeny Mironov.

The European Championship third from 1974 Geoff Capes was subsequently disqualified for improper behavior

disqualification

Another athlete was disqualified for his unacceptable behavior. The British European Championship third from 1974 Geoff Capes had pushed a Czechoslovak official, in the further course there was a fight with this official. The British was then stripped of his result.

The disqualification of the British shot putter was decided only after the end of the competition. So the participation of the Swiss Jean-Pierre Egger in the final was prevented, who actually could have moved up.

Qualifying round

August 31, 1978

Nineteen participants entered the qualifying round. The qualification distance for direct entry into the final was 19.50 m. Since only nine athletes initially exceeded this mark (highlighted in light blue), the final field was filled with the next best-placed athletes to twelve shot putters (highlighted in light green). So finally 19.26 m was enough for the final. However, with Ralf Reichenbach and Jean-Pierre Egger, two other athletes would have been eligible to participate in the final, for whom the competition was over after the qualification as sufferers of the later disqualifications for Geoff Capes and Yevgeny Mironov.

space	Surname	nation	Width (m)
1	Reijo Ståhlberg	Finland	20.25
2	Udo Beyer	GDR	20.03
3	Anatoly Yarosh	Soviet Union	19.80
4th	Jaromír Vlk	Czechoslovakia	19.76
5	Alexander Baryshnikov	Soviet Union	19.74
6th	Wolfgang Schmidt	GDR	19.72
7th	Hreinn Halldórsson	Iceland	19.68
8th	Jaroslav Brabec	Czechoslovakia	19.48
9	Mathias Schmidt	GDR	19.38
10	Waltscho Stoew	Bulgaria	19.26
11	Ralf Reichenbach	BR Germany	19.09 actually qualified for the final
12	Jean-Pierre Egger	Switzerland	18.67 actually qualified for the final
13	Miroslav Janousek	Czechoslovakia	18.61
14th	Arrhenius is different	Finland	18.48
15th	Vladimir Milic	Yugoslavia	18.35
16	Marco Montelatici	Italy	18.14
17th	Angelo Groppelli	Italy	18.04
DSQ	Geoff Capes	Great Britain	admitted to the finals
DOP	Yevgeny Mironov	Soviet Union	admitted to the finals

final

September 1, 1978

space	Surname	nation	1st attempt (m)	2. attempt (m)	3rd attempt (m)	4th attempt (m)	5th attempt (m)	6th attempt (m)	Best width (m)
1	Udo Beyer	GDR	x	21.08	x	20.21	x	20.18	21.08 CRe
2	Alexander Baryshnikov	Soviet Union	19.73	20.68	10.16	20.00	19.84	20.48	20.68 SB
3	Wolfgang Schmidt	GDR	19.86	19.63	19.92	19.62	20.30	19.49	20.30
4th	Reijo Ståhlberg	Finland	19.61	x	19.36	20.17	19.99	20.08	20.17
5	Anatoly Yarosh	Soviet Union							20.03 SB
6th	Jaromír Vlk	Czechoslovakia							19.53
7th	Hreinn Halldórsson	Iceland							19.34
8th	Jaroslav Brabec	Czechoslovakia							19.27
9	Waltscho Stoew	Bulgaria							19.23
10	Mathias Schmidt	GDR							19.21
DSQ	Geoff Capes	Great Britain
DOP	Yevgeny Mironov	Soviet Union

• 

  European champion was the Olympic champion from 1976 Udo Beyer - he won many more successes, including Olympic bronze in 1980 and the European Championship -Titel  1982

• 

  Bronze medalist Wolfgang Schmidt was particularly successful as a discus thrower, so two days later he became European champion in his specialty discipline - as a result he had major problems with the political system of the GDR, but continued his career after German reunification with a few other successes

• 

  Mathias Schmidt (far left) reached tenth place

Web links

• European Athletics Championships - Prague 1978 from european-athletics.org, accessed August 4, 2019
• European Championship 1978 Prague, Men Shot Put on todor66.com, accessed August 4, 2019
• Track and Field Statistics, EM 1978 on trackfield.brinkster.net, accessed on August 4, 2019
• European Athletics Championships Zurich 2014 - Statistics Handbook , Men Shot Put European Championship 1978 Praha, p. 430 (PDF, 13.363 kB), Spanish / English at european-athletics.org, accessed on August 4, 2019
• Results of all European Athletics Championships - 1978, men's shot put on sportschau.de, accessed on August 4, 2019
• 12th European Athletics Championships 1978 in Prague, Czechoslovakia from ifosta.de, accessed on August 4, 2019

References and comments

1. ↑ IAAF world records. Shot put, men , accessed August 4, 2019
2. ↑ 7 Women Athletes Banned For Drugs , New York Times, October 26, 1979, Section Six, accessed August 4, 2019
3. ↑ The Politic Of Drugs In The Olympic Movement, Editors: Wayne Wilson / Edward Derse , reading sample, ISBN 0-7360-0329-0 , English, accessed August 4, 2019
4. ^ New Nation, September 2, 1978 , p. 16, accessed August 4, 2019
5. ↑ https://archive.org/stream/dailycolonist19780902/1978_09_02_djvu.txt , p. 16, English, accessed on August 4, 2019