Primož Kozmus

Primož Kozmus
Primož Kozmus (2012)
nation	Slovenia
birthday	30th September 1979 (age 40)
place of birth	Novo mesto ,  Yugoslavia
size	188 cm
Weight	106 kg
Career
discipline	Hammer throw
Best performance	82.58 m (September 2, 2009 in Celje )
society	AK Brežice
Trainer	Marjan Ogorevc, Vladimir Kevo
status	resigned
End of career	20th September 2014
Medal table
Olympic games 1 × 1 × 0 × World championships 1 × 1 × 1 × World Athletics Finals 1 × 0 × 0 × Military world games 1 × 0 × 0 ×
Olympic games gold Beijing 2008 82.02 m silver London 2012 79.36 m  World championships silver Osaka 2007 82.29 m gold Berlin 2009 80.84 m bronze Daegu 2011 79.39 m Military world games gold Hyderabad 2007 75.98 m
last change: March 29, 2020

Primož Kozmus (born September 30, 1979 in Novo mesto , SFRY , Yugoslavia ) is a former Slovenian hammer thrower who became Olympic champion in 2008 and world champion the following year. He is also the holder of the Slovenian national record

Athletic career

Primož Kozmus gained his first experience in international competitions in 1997 at the Junior European Championships in Ljubljana , where he was eliminated from the qualification with a 6 kg hammer with a width of 58.14 m. The following year he took part in the Junior World Championships in Annecy , but in which he was eliminated without a valid attempt in qualification. Also at the Summer Universiade 1999 in Palma de Mallorca he was eliminated with 70.11 m in qualification, but then reached the final at the U23 European Championships in Gothenburg , in which he finished twelfth with 66.11 m. In 2000 Kozmus qualified for the first time to participate in the Olympic Games in Sydney , where he did not reach the final with a width of 68.83 m .

In 2001 he retired at the U23 European Championships in Amsterdam with 68.11 m in qualification and was then fourth in his first participation in the Mediterranean Games in Tunis with a throw of 71.12 m. The following year he took part in the European Championships in Munich for the first time, but was eliminated there with 72.60 m in the qualification. In 2003 he reached the finals for the first time at the World Championships in Saint-Denis near Paris, where he finished fifth with a width of 79.68 m. He then finished sixth at the World Athletics Final in Szombathely with 78.59 m. In the year he qualified again for the Olympic Games in Athens , where he reached fifth place with a throw on 78.56 m in the final . He then finished fourth at the World Athletics Final in Szombathely with 77.21 m.

After being unable to compete in the 2005 season due to injury, he took part in the 2006 European Championships in Gothenburg, where he finished sixth with a width of 78.18 m and then reached the World Athletics Final in Stuttgart with 76.39 m eight. In June 2007 he improved his personal record to 82.30 m and was therefore considered a candidate for a medal for the World Championships in Osaka , where he promoted the hammer to 82.29 m and thus won the silver medal behind Belarusian Ivan Zichan . He then finished sixth at the World Athletics Final in Stuttgart with 76.78 m and won the Military World Games in Hyderabad with a throw of 75.98 m. In 2008 he took part in the Olympic Games in Beijing for the third time . There Kozmus took the lead in the first round and improved to 82.02 m in the second round. With this distance he won the competition and became the first Slovenian Olympic champion in athletics. Then he also won the World Athletics Final in Stuttgart with 79.99 m.

In 2009 he was together with the Hungarian Krisztián Pars favorite for the World Championships in Berlin , where he was able to prevail with 80.84 m against the Polish Szymon Ziółkowski . He also became the first Slovene to win a world title in athletics. On September 2, 2009, he improved the Slovenian record to 82.58 m and then won the World Athletics Final in Thessaloniki with 79.80 m. Thereupon he announced his retirement in October, but returned to top-class sport in 2010. In 2011 he qualified again for the world championships in Daegu , South Korea , where he won the bronze medal behind the Japanese Kōji Murofushi and the Hungarian Pars with a width of 79.39 m . The following year Kozmus played only two competitions before his fourth Olympic Games in London , where he won the silver medal behind Pars with a season best of 79.36 m in the final . At the World Athletics Championships in Moscow in 2013 he was fourth with a throw of 79.22 m and the following year he reached sixth place at the European Championships in Zurich with 77.46 m. On September 20, 2014, he played his last international competition in Ljubljana , which he also won with 70.66 m.

Kozmus was also very successful at the national level; between 1999 and 2004, as well as 2006, 2008 and 2009, 2011, 2013 and 2014, he secured the Slovenian hammer throw championship.

Awards

• Sportsman of the year : 2007, 2008, 2009
• Bloudek badge: 2007
• Bloudek Prize: 2008
• Red za zasluge: 2009

literature

• Peter Matthews (Ed.): Athletics 2007. SportsBooks, Cheltenham 2007, ISBN 978-1-899807-49-9 .

Web links

Commons : Primož Kozmus  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Primoz Kozmus in the database of World Athletics (English)
• Primož Kozmus in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Steve Landells: Personal bests - Primoz Kozmus ( English ) IAAF. February 16, 2015. Accessed February 16, 2020.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ HDsports.at: Bolt triumphs with Olympic record , August 5, 2012