Uwe Hohn

Who is Uwe Hohn?

Uwe Hohn is a German athlete and coach. Hohn was the only athlete to throw a javelin more than 100 meters.

On 20 July 1984, competing in the Olympic Day of Athletics competition at the Friedrich Ludwig Jahn Sportpark, Berlin, Uwe Hohn threw the javelin a distance of 104.80 metres. Hohn's incredible throw had shattered the previous world standard of 99.72 meters set by Tom Petranoff of the United States in May 1983. Contrary to a popular myth however, this was not the primary reason for the change in javelin design rules that came into force starting in 1986; the relevant changes had already been officially proposed prior to Hohn's record throw, not only to shorten distances but even more to get rid of the then frequent flat or ambiguous landings, which often made it hard to assess if a throw should be declared legal – most famously in the high-profile case at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow where the eventual winner Dainis Kūla only progressed to the last three rounds with an apparently flat throw. Ambiguous landings were also much more difficult to measure accurately, compared to clearly legal ones where the javelin would stick in the ground at the landing spot.