Olympic countdown: 71 days

Perhaps 71m might not have won hammer gold

Skolimowska on her way to winning hammer gold n Sydney

Poland's Kamila Skolimowska was perhaps a surprise winner of the first women's hammer gold medal in Sydney.

Her throw of 71.16m was the only effort over 70m in the competition, was then the fifth best effort of all time and naturally became the Olympic record.

But if pre-Games favourite Mihaela Melinte hadn't been eliminated, things might have been very different.

The Romanian had set a world record of 76.07m a year earlier but was banned after testing positive for nandrolone.

Melinte's positive test had come on 7 June in Milan but, in a bizarre scene in Sydney, the 25-year-old had walked into the Olympic stadium along with other athletes ready to begin qualifying.

The director of competition for track and field approached her and told her that she was suspended and walked her out, in front of nearly 100,000 spectators.

"It was maybe the first time she had heard the news," said International Association of Athletics Federations spokesman Giorgio Reineri. "Maybe her coach didn't know either. I don't know why she wasn't told."

But Skolimowska admitted that the scene had transformed the competition.

"When Melinte was disqualified, we all though our chances of getting a medal had improved," said the Pole. "That's when the competition really began."

Russia's Olga Kuzenkova won silver with a fourth-round effort of 69.77m and Germany's Kirsten Muenchow set a new national record of 69.28m to win bronze.

Skolimowska's gold was the fourth athletics gold medal of the 2000 Games for her country and the18-year-old went on to improve her junior world record to 71.71m at the IAAF Grand Prix final in Melbourne a year later.