Bolt acknowledges Asahara’s career; Varying fortunes for Beijing champions at Kawasaki Super Meet

Two reigning Olympic champions, Tomasz Majewski of Poland (Shot Put) and Slovenia’s Primoz Kozmus (Hammer Throw), and two reigning World champions, Tatyana Lebedeva (women’s Long Jump) and Donald Thomas (men’s High Jump), competed in today’s edition of the annual ‘Super-Meet’ which was held in front of a capacity crowd of 25,000 spectators in Kawasaki, Japan (23).

Kawasaki is situated just south-west of Tokyo, and competitions were played out in Todoroki stadium, the site of this year’s national championships, under a sunny sky with a top temperature of 26.9C.

The meeting also featured the final race for Noboharu Asahara, 36, who has been the premier sprinter in Japan for many years.

Low key Shot won by Olympic champion; Murofushi prevails in Hammer

Poland’s Beijing champion Tomasz Majewski took the lead in the men’s Shot Put with a 19.37m release in the second round and never relinquished his lead. He improved to 19.63 in his fourth throw, while Ukraine’s Yuriy Bilonog, his predecessor as Olympic champion, could not put past 18m. He failed to improve his first throw of 17.66m and finished a distant second.