The World Championsips, Day 1!

Finally, it was time! The Championships began on Saturday, August 15th at 9:00 am sharp. My seats for the first day were awesome, 14th row right behind the hammer circle and one of the shot circles. Which was perfect, because on this day was the Men's Shot and Hammer qualifying rounds, as well as the finals of the men's shot later that night.
This was the view from my seat. You can see the shot putters getting ready to warm up.

This is a shot of Cantwell walking off after automatically qualifying for the final later that night.

HAMMER TIME:
Primoz Kozsmus of Slovenia walking off after automatically qualifying with one throw.

Sergei Litvinov Jr of Germany (Son of two time world champion, Olympic Champion, and former world record holder Sergei Litvinov) walks off after qualifying for the final.

Olli-Pekka Karjalainen of Finland coming over to talk to his coach after one of his throws.
Sergei Litvinov getting interviewed after qualifying. The dude is my age (23) and he qualified for the final in the World Championships in the hammer...not to many guys his age have done that!
A shot of the spider-cam, a camera hanging from cables that moved up, down, and all around that side of the stadium.
AG Kruger of the USA before taking his warm-up throws.
Libor Charfreitag of Slovakia taking a warm-up throw.

Markus Esser of Germany warming up.

Krisztian Pars of Hungary, the favorite to win, warms up.
Jake Freeman of the USA warming up.

Markus Esser talking to his coach during the competition. Coaches are not allowed down on the infield, so they have to sit in the stands while their athletes try to come over to talk to them.
The competition now done, the throwers are led off the field with the top 12 advancing to the finals on Monday night.
Me, Markus Esser, and my teammate Paul. There were lots of athletes just walking around outside the stadium during the championships...made for some great photo opportunities!

So after the morning session was a lunch of Currywurst, which is sausage cut up into little pieces with curry sauce, and Berliner Pilsener...guess what that is. After hanging out outside the stadium for a few hours, it was time to go back in for the evening session.

Evening Session Pictures

Ireland's flag entering the stadium in the opening ceremonies. I'm half Irish, hence the picture. If you're wondering, my other half is German, and you'll see plenty of German flags in other pictures.
The American flag enters the stadium...go USA!!

The flags of all the participating nations lined up on the track. The German flag is on the jumbotron at the back of the stadium.
Reese Hoffa (USA) and Tomasz Majewzski (Poland, last year's Olympic Champion and the favorite to win the World Champs) about to release their first throws in the finals.
Adam Nelson (USA) and Christian Cantwell (USA) in the back of the circle, about to throw.

For those of you that didn't watch it or don't follow throwing, Majewszki, the Polish thrower, was favored to win, as I said. Cantwell opened up with a very solid throw in the first round, that held the lead until Majewski re-claimed the lead in the 4th round (I think). Meanwhile, Ralf Bartels of Germany got a lifetime best, rocketing him into 3rd place, surprising everyone. In the 5th round, Majewszki extended his lead further with a massive throw of almost 72 feet. So going into his 5th round throw, Cantwell was in the silver medal position, with Majewszki in 1st and Bartels of Germany in 3rd. Cantwell responded with a massive 72 foot, 3 inch throw that put him back on top! Majewszki couldn't respond in the last round, and Cantwell got the gold medal, with Majewszki getting silver and Bartels getting bronze, which the German crowd went WILD for.

Majewszki, the favorite, settles for silver.

Cantwell and Bartels congradulate eachother on their respective medals.

Cantwell wins! He stands alone, the best shot putter in the world!

The medallists take their victory lap.

And to top the night off, I got to meet Lance Deal, the American record holder in the hammer throw! In 1996 he threw 82.52m/270'-8.75 inches. He's now retired and was at the Championships as a coach.

It was an AWESOME first day!

In case you're wondering why I didn't post any videos, don't worry...I got all the hammer qualifying and one of the shot qualifying circles on a video camera. At the time of writing this I haven't yet sent the footage in to Macthrow, but I plan on it soon.