Carson City's Linkul looks ahead

Robert Linkul's winning distance of 184 feet, 8 inches in the hammer throw during the Nevada Throwers Club's all-comers meet Sunday morning at Reed High School in Sparks was pretty respectable.

There was just one little detail that made his throw on Sunday a lot more special special - he did it with an 18-pound ball, not the regulation 16-pounder.

"I had consistent throws around 185 feet and my best is 189, so I was happy about that," said Linkul, a 1999 Whittell High School graduate who now lists Carson City as home. "It was a good workout."

To put the mark into perspective - and to show how far he has come as a thrower - the 184-8 throw would have been close to a personal record two years ago when he was still a junior at Sacramento State University.

"I usually figure about eight feet per pound, so that was probably equal to 210 feet," Linkul said.

That's even better than his lifetime competitive best in the hammer throw, a mark of 207-10 at the Big Sky Conference Championships. The Sacramento State senior also threw 204-6 to place second at the West Regional and earn a qualifying berth in the NCAA Championships in Austin, Texas.

Linkul has come a long way in the last couple of years and the future only seems to be getting better. The coming year will be one of change. He still has another year left at Sacramento State, but his college eligibility has been used up so he will compete as a post-graduate athlete. Also, he and one-time Hornets distance runner Amy Dawson are working on their wedding plans.

"We're going to get married in September, either at Lake Tahoe or Redding, which is where she's from," Linkul said.

"This next year is going to be busy," added Linkul, who now works at the Arden Hills Country Club health club in Sacramento. "The wedding, school during the day, work at night, and of course, there's training."

Linkul fell short of making the cut for the U.S. Olympic Trials in Sacramento this year, but he plans to continue competing for the Nevada Throwers Club and he has some big plans down the road. If all goes well, he wants to be at the Olympic Trials in 2008 - and at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

"My mom and dad (Tina and Richard Linkul of Carson City) are buying tickets," he said with a smile. "It's a long way to go, but I figure we can get there."

And the the 6-foot-3, 250-pound Linkul says the prime years for a hammer thrower are still ahead of him.

"I'm hoping to get in another 15, 20 years," he said. "It's not easy (being a post-graduate athlete). I'm trying to line up some sponsors; I've already got a chiropractor who's going to work with me, and I'm trying to get help with nutritional supplements, equipment, travel and stuff like that."

Linkul was a three-time zone champion and a state runner-up finisher in the discus at Whittell, then went on to throw at Mesa (Ariz.) and American River College (Sacramento). He first began to throw the hammer at Mesa.

"It just kind of happened," he said. "When I got to Mesa, my coach told me, 'You're not built to be a discus thrower. I'm going to make you a hammer guy.' I threw the discus ever since I was in fifth grade and now the tables are kind of turned.

"I love it. The build-up of the momentum and everything. Sometimes you eat it pretty hard, but it's fun, and now I've moved on to the hammer."

Notes ... Greg Watson of Southern Utah University, the Nevada 4A state discus champion for Green Valley High in 2003, placed second in the hammer throw Sunday with a 150-9. Thirteen-year-old Zack Vanden Heuvel had a throw of 108-8. ... Jennifer Onyeagbako, a recent graduate of Reed High School who has signed with Sacramento State, had a throw of 143-2 in the discus. Onyeagbako was a fifth-place finisher at the prestigious Golden West Invitational in Sacramento in June and won the Nevada 4A state title in May with a mark of 154-6 that ranked No. 10 in the nation among preps, according to Track and Field News. ... Brandon Seymour, a junior-to-be at Dayton High, had throws of 86-4 in the discus and 34-0 3/4 in the shot put on Sunday.

Contact Dave Price at dprice@nevadaappeal.com or call 881-1220.