The 27-year-old from Livno threw 21.51 in the first series, 21.05 in the second, made an error in the third but went on to throw 21.83 meters in the fourth attempt. In the last series, Mihaljević reached 21.81 meters.
Filip threw a centimeter shorter than his record which was not enough for a medal, because the three medal winners threw over 22 meters.
A big surprise was made by the Brazilian Darlan Romani (22.53), who broke the 26-victory winning streak of the ruler of this discipline, American Ryan Crouser (22.44), and took the gold. The bronze medalist was New Zealander Tom Walsh (22.31).
Mihaljević entered the competition with the third-best result this season and the indoor record (21.84). The Croatian shot put record holder won the last Croatian medal at the indoor World Championships – he was bronze in 2016 in Portland at his very first senior world championships and threw 20.87 meters, which was his personal best.
Croatian athlete Ivana Lončarek did not manage to place among the 24 hurdlers who will compete in the 60m hurdles semifinals. Lončarek was fourth in the second qualifying group with a time of 8.19 seconds, and for direct placement, she should have been among the top three.
After the competitions in all six qualifying groups were over, it turned out that Lončarek’s result was the 28th time in total, which was not enough to be among the semifinalists. She missed the semifinals by two hundredths.
If she had managed to repeat her best result from this season (8.11), Lončarek would have qualified for the semifinals without any difficulties.
The World Athletics Indoor Championships in Belgrade were held from March 18 to 20, 2022, at the Štark Arena.
Source: HRT
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