Ivan Tikhon of Belarus won the men's hammer throw at the World Athletics Championships in Paris, France, on Monday.

Tikhon fouled three of his allotted six attempts, but still won quite comfortably with a best of 83.05 metres on his final attempt.

The throw, however, was well below his personal best of 84.32 metres, achieved only 17 days ago in the Belarusian capital, Minsk.

Tikhon's position at the top of the table was never under any real threat from the time he recorded his first legal throw, on his second attempt, of 80.69m.

But Adrian Annus of Hungary snatched the silver medal from Japan's Koji Murofushi on his sixth and final attempt with a throw of 80.36m.

Till then Murofushi, who won the Asian Games gold medal in 2002, had been in the second spot with a best throw of 80.12m. The veteran only managed 79.07m on his final attempt and had to settle for the bronze.

Murofushi was a silver medallist at the 8th World Athletics Championships in Edmonton, Canada, in 2001 with a throw of 82.92m and has a personal best of 84.86m, achieved on June 29, 2003, in Prague. He is also the current Asian champion and winner of the IAAF Grand Prix final in Paris last year.

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