Seven months ago in Rome at the Golden League meet Salim Sdiri did not achieve a record-breaking long jump but rather a javelin to the back. One of Finland’s finest javelin throwers, Tero Pitkamaki, missed his target by 80 meters that day. Sdiri was left with internal injuries to his right kidney and liver. While he has started training again he, understandably, is frightened to compete in an arena where a javelin event is taking place simultaneously. The International Association of Athletics Federations has looked into isolating the throwing events from the rest of the meet but they feel that accidents such as these are related more to “stadium configuration”.
The most interesting part of this story is that Sdiri is expressing how bitter he is about this whole situation. He feels that Pitkamaki, the guy that impaled him, has not been apologetic enough toward him. He is obviously upset that Pitkamaki gets to go on with his career as if nothing ever happened. He is also attacking The International Association of Athletics Federations for not checking up on him. He feels that the I.A.A.F is more concerned with steroid testing top athletes than monitoring his recovery.
Because Sdiri is alive and well I have to admit I find this situation a little comical. Americans go to car races in hopes of seeing a crash and hockey games in hopes of seeing a fight but who thinks of going to a track and field meet to see life threatening javelin throws?
If you want to know some more details here is the article in the NYTimes
I don't know why but I did not expect to find video of this but YouTube has everything and it is not bloody or anything, so enjoy.
1 comment:
I can't believe you found video of this event. Good job! They should probably pay more attention to how events are staged on the field to avoid this happening again. Or get rid of the javelin event...because really...who cares?
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