Less than two weeks after Hungarian short track skaters won the country’s first Winter Olympic gold medal, shot-putter Anita Márton claimed Hungary’s first-ever gold at the Athletics World Indoor Championships in Birmingham last week, with the best two throws of the year and a new Hungarian record of 19.62 meters.
The 29-year-old athlete has won seven of her eight most recent championships and an overall 36 domestic titles in the shot and discus before her first global gold in Birmingham after several silver and bronze medals.
The two-time European champion Márton started the competition with a 18.29 m throw and a 18.30, then continued with a 19.48 meter toss, bumping the leading Chinese athlete Gao Yang out of a medal position. She saved her best throw for the final round and won the championship with a national record of 19.62 meters, ahead of the Jamaican Danniel Thomas-Dodd (19.22) and the Chinese Lijiao Gong (19.08).
Márton, who came home from the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics with a bronze medal, said after her victory:
I have been dreaming about this achievement since the Olympics. I had a lot of people cheering for me in the crowd. The atmosphere was amazing.
You can watch Anita Márton’s last throw here: