Early life and competition

Włodarczyk won her first national U23 championships in 2007, and went on to compete in the 2007 European Athletics U23 Championships, although she did not progress beyond the qualifying round. She finished sixth in the hammer throw competition at the 2008 Olympic Games.

Włodarczyk qualified for the 2008 World Athletics Final and won a bronze medal. The following year, she took part in the 2009 European Team Championships, winning her first gold medal at a major international competition.

Włodarczyk achieved a personal best throw of 76.20 metres (250.0 ft), achieved on 30 May 2009 in Biała Podlaska, beating her previous record by 81 cm and improve 76.59 m in Golden Spike Ostrava. Prior to the 2009 World Championships in Athletics, she produced a national record-breaking performance in Cottbus, winning the competition with a world-leading 77.20-metre (253.3 ft) throw. This was fourth longest throw by a woman in hammer throw.

First world record

On 22 August 2009, during the World Championships in Athletics in Berlin, Germany, Włodarczyk set a world record with a throw of 77.96 metres (255 ft 9 in).^[6] Her season ended prematurely when she twisted her left ankle during her celebration.^[7] Returning to competition at the Meeting Grand Prix IAAF de Dakar in April 2010, she easily won her event with a throw of 75.13 m.^[8] She then proceeded to break her existing world record with a 78.30-metre (256.9 ft) hammer throw at the Enea Cup in Bydgoszcz on 6 June 2010.^[9] She won the bronze at the 2010 European Athletics Championships and was ranked second overall for the season in the IAAF Hammer Throw Challenge, finishing behind Betty Heidler.^[10] She finished outside of the medals at the 2011 World Championships in Athletics, coming fifth overall.

Olympic Games and further successes

In 2012, Włodarczyk finished third at the Ostrava Golden Spike and was the runner-up at the Prefontaine Classic.^[11] At the 2012 Summer Olympics, she won the silver medal with a throw of 77.60 m.^[12] On 11 October 2016, she was retroactively awarded gold after Russia's Tatyana Lysenko was stripped of the medal after testing positive in reanalysis of her stored doping samples.^[13][14][15]

In 2014, Włodarczyk won the European Championship with a throw of 78.76, which was a championship and national record.^[16]

On 1 August 2015 Włodarczyk set a new world record with a throw of 81.08 metres (266.0 ft) and became the first woman to throw the hammer over 80 metres (260 ft).^[17] She went on to win the gold medal at the World Championships, once again throwing over 80 metres (260 ft).

On 15 August 2016 Włodarczyk won the gold medal at the Olympic Games in Rio, setting a new world record with a throw of 82.29 metres (270.0 ft).^[18] On 28 August 2016, she threw 82.98 metres (272.2 ft), setting a new world record just two weeks after the Olympics at the EAA 7th Kamila Skolimowska Memorial in Warsaw. In competition, Włodarczyk uses some of the equipment that belonged to the late Skolimowska, as a tribute to her fellow hammer thrower.^[19]

In 2014, 2016 and 2017 she was given Track & Field News Athlete of the Year award.

In 2017, she received Polish Sportspersonality of the Year Award for her sports achievements in the previous year. She finished the year with a 42 contests winning streak which began in July 2014.^[20]

As of 2020^[update], she holds all of the top 15 women's hammer throw results and 27 out of the top 30.^[21]

Third consecutive Olympic gold medal

At the 2020 Summer Olympics, she won the hammer throw event with a throw of 78.48 m. Włodarczyk is the only woman to ever win this event three times in a row (in the men's competition, only John Flanagan did so, winning the event at the 1900, 1904 and 1908 Summer Olympics). She is also the first woman to win a specific individual athletics event three times in a row at the Olympic Games. With three Olympic gold medals, she ranks third in the all-time medal table among Polish athletes who competed at the Summer Olympics, behind racewalker Robert Korzeniowski and sprinter Irena Szewińska.