1996 Summer Olympics / Athletics - Javelin Throw (Women)

sport	athletics
discipline	Javelin throw
gender	Women
Attendees	32 athletes from 24 countries
Competition location	Centennial Olympic Stadium
Competition phase	July 26, 1996 (qualification) July 27, 1996 (final)
Medalists Heli Rantanen ( FIN )   Louise McPaul ( AUS )   Trine Hattestad ( NOR )

The women's javelin at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics was played on July 26th, 27th and 1996 at the Centennial Olympic Stadium . 32 athletes took part.

The Olympic champion was Heli Rantanen from Finland . She won ahead of the Australian Louise McPaul and the Norwegian Trine Hattestad .

Karen Forkel , Steffi Nerius and Silke Renk started for Germany . Renk was eliminated in the qualification, Nerius and Forkel made it to the final. Forkel finished sixth, Nerius ninth.
Athletes from Switzerland, Austria and Liechtenstein did not take part.

Current titleholders

Olympic champion in 1992	Silke Renk ( Germany )	68.34 m	Barcelona 1992
World Champion 1995	Natallja Schykalenka ( Belarus )	68.64 m	Gothenburg 1995
European champion in 1994	Trine Hattestad ( Finland )	68.00 m	Helsinki 1994
Pan American Champion 1995	Xiomara Rivero ( Cuba )	63.92 m	Mar del Plata 1995
Central America and Caribbean champion 1995	Sonia Bisset ( Cuba )	62.24 m	Guatemala City 1995
South America Champion 1995	Zuleima Araméndiz ( Colombia )	54.82 m	Manaus 1995
Asian champion 1995	Li Lei ( People's Republic of China )	60.48 m	Jakarta 1995
African champion 1996	Fatma Zouhour Toumi ( Tunisia )	51.88 m	Yaoundé 1996
Oceania champion 1994	Melissa Brearley ( New Zealand )	48.34 m	Auckland 1994

Existing records

World record	80.00 m	Petra Felke ( GDR )	Potsdam , GDR (now Germany )	September 9, 1988
Olympic record	74.68 m		Final from Seoul , South Korea	September 26, 1988

Remarks:

• All times are local Atlanta time ( UTC − 5 ).
• All widths are given in meters (m).

qualification

The qualification was carried out in two groups. The qualification distance for the direct entry into the final was 62.50 m. Since only three athletes reached this distance (highlighted in light blue), the final field was filled with the next best athletes from both groups to twelve participants (highlighted in light green). So finally 60.46 m was enough for the final.

Group A

July 26, 1996, 4:30 p.m.

space	Surname	nation	1st attempt	Second attempt	3. Attempt	Expanse	annotation
1	Trine Hattestad	Norway	64.52	-	-	64.52
2	Natallja Schykalenka	Belarus	x	50.10	62.32	62.32
3	Li Lei	People's Republic of China	59.54	61.48	x	61.48
4th	Isel López	Cuba	60.12	61.40	x	61.40
5	Steffi Nerius	Germany	x	56.82	60.98	60.98
6th	Mikaela Ingberg	Finland	53.52	x	60.46	60.46
7th	Tessa Sanderson	Great Britain	58.86	56.80	56.64	58.86
8th	Lee Young-sun	South Korea	54.62	57.94	58.66	58.66
9	Joanne Stone	Australia	52.30	49.16	58.54	58.54
10	Aysel Taş	Turkey	55.32	56.20	57.86	57.86
11	Taina Uppa	Finland	57.74	56.80	x	57.74
12	Renata Strašek	Slovenia	54.72	51.46	57.04	57.04
13	Jette Jeppesen	Denmark	55.24	54.52	56.16	56.16
14th	Mirela Manjani	Albania	x	x	55.64	55.64
15th	Erica Wheeler	United States	53.34	49.54	52.72	53.34
16	Iloai Suaniu	Western Samoa	x	38.08	x	38.08
DNS	Sonia Radicheva	Bulgaria

Group B

July 26, 1996, 6:00 p.m.

space	Surname	nation	1st attempt	Second attempt	3. Attempt	Expanse	annotation
1	Felicia Țilea	Romania	58.84	x	66.94	66.94
2	Heli Rantanen	Finland	66.54	-	-	66.54
3	Louise McPaul	Australia	62.32	-	-	62.32
4th	Odelmis Palma	Cuba	62.30	54.76	x	62.30
5	Xiomara Rivero	Cuba	x	52.84	61.32	61.32
6th	Karen Forkel	Germany	60.84	59.48	x	60.84
7th	Silke Renk	Germany	58.88	59.10	59.70	59.70
8th	Laverne Eve	Bahamas	52.92	x	58.48	58.48
9	Oksana Ovchinnikova	Russia	x	57.28	x	57.28
10	Rita Ramanauskaitė	Lithuania	x	56.38	56.94	56.94
11	Nikola Tomečková	Czech Republic	55.02	52.48	x	55.02
12	Nicole Carroll	United States	53.46	54.74	52.18	54.74
13	Shelley Holroyd	Great Britain	53.46	52.72	54.72	54.72
14th	Zuleima Araméndiz	Colombia	53.86	x	54.24	54.24
15th	Akiko Miyajima	Japan	49.58	53.18	53.98	53.98
16	Nadine Auzeil	France	52.76	52.66	50.84	52.76

final

July 27, 1996, 8:20 pm

Twelve athletes had qualified for the final, three of them by the required qualification distance, nine more by their placements. Three Cubans, two Germans and two Finns met one participant each from Australia, China, Norway, Romania and Belarus.

The favorites were the Belarusian world champion Natallja Schykalenka and the Norwegian European champion Trine Hattestad. The 1992 Olympic champion Silke Renk from Germany failed in the qualification, she no longer had the Olympic form from 1992. Other medal candidates were the Romanian runner-up and European Championship third Felicia Țilea, the two Finns Mikaela Ingberg as World Cup third and Heli Rantanen as World Cup -Fourth and Vice European Champion Karen Forkel from Germany, who, however, had remained well below her performance potential at the last World Championships.

In the first round, Rantanen managed a throw with 67.94 m, which obviously shocked the competitors a bit. The Australian Louise McPaul and Hattestad remained more than six meters behind. Schykalenka's first attempt earned her fourth place, but was another three and a half meters shorter. In the second round, Shykalenka's spear hit a camera cable, the referees decided that the Belarusian could repeat the attempt. But the mishap had obviously irritated Shykalenka very much. She did not succeed in another valid attempt, she was eliminated after three throws as twelfth and last in the final.

McPaul had increased to 62.74 m in the second attempt, but fell back to third place, because the Cuban Isel López achieved 63.50 m. McPaul countered in the third lap and took second place with 64.18 m. Forkel achieved the same distance and was now third because of the poorer second best distance.

López passed McPaul and Forkel again in the fifth attempt with 64.68 m. Her compatriot Xiomara Rivero reached 64.48 m, with which she was now also in third place ahead of McPaul and Forkel. In the last attempt, McPaul countered one more time. With 65.54 m she improved to second place. López now even fell out of the medal ranks, because Trine Hattestad scored 64.98 m and won the bronze medal. Heli Rantanen was Olympic champion with her litter from the first run, silver went to Louise McPaul. Isel López and Xiomara Rivero finished fourth and fifth in that order, ahead of Karen Forkel. The co-favorite Felicia Țilea could not exceed the 60-meter mark in the final and came in tenth. Her 66.94 m from qualification would have been enough for silver.

Heli Rantanen achieved the first Finnish Olympic victory in the women's javelin .

Louise McPaul was the first Australian, Trine Hattestad the first Norwegian medalist in this discipline.

space	Surname	nation	1st attempt	Second attempt	3. Attempt	4th attempt	5th attempt	6th attempt	Bottom line	annotation
1	Heli Rantanen	Finland	67.94	64.72	63.84	62.60	63.82	59.18	67.94
2	Louise McPaul	Australia	61.72	62.74	64.18	59.76	63.34	65.54	65.54
3	Trine Hattestad	Norway	61.42	60.78	x	58.66	62.74	64.98	64.98
4th	Isel López	Cuba	x	63.50	57.98	x	64.68	x	64.68
5	Xiomara Rivero	Cuba	x	61.94	62.76	x	64.48	61.60	64.48
6th	Karen Forkel	Germany	56.50	59.20	64.18	58.70	62.04	62.42	64.18
7th	Mikaela Ingberg	Finland	x	61.52	x	60.30	x	x	61.52
8th	Li Lei	People's Republic of China	x	56.96	60.74	59.56	58.52	60.12	60.74
9	Steffi Nerius	Germany	57.88	60.20	59.78	not in the final of the eight best throwers			60.20
10	Felicia Țilea	Romania	56.02	57.28	59.94				59.94
11	Odelmys Palma	Cuba	x	59.70	57.50				59.70
12	Natallja Schykalenka	Belarus	58.56	x	x				58.56

literature

• Gerd Rubenbauer (ed.), Olympic Summer Games Atlanta 1996 with reports by Britta Kruse, Johannes Ebert, Andreas Schmidt and Ernst Christian Schütt, comments: Gerd Rubenbauer and Hans Schwarz, Chronik Verlag im Bertelsmann Verlag, Gütersloh / Munich 1996, p. 52f

Web links

• SportsReference Javelin , accessed March 16, 2018
• Official Report, Part III on the Olympic Games in Atlanta , p. 96, English / French (PDF, 13,520 MB), accessed on March 16, 2018

Video

• 1996 Olympics women's javelin throw final , published July 1, 2011 on youtube.com, accessed March 16, 2018

Individual evidence

1. ↑ IAAF Statistics Handbook, Beijing 2015, page 802 , accessed on March 16, 2018
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Official Report, Part III on the Olympic Games in Atlanta ( Memento of the original from October 7, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , P. 96, English / French (PDF, 13,520 MB), accessed on March 16, 2018