Kostas Zoltas, the Gophers junior from Greece, won the hammer throw in the Big Ten meet for the third year in a row on Friday in Bloomington, Ind., in dramatic fashion.
He moved from second to first place on his last throw — 245 feet, 10 inches — a conference record. Zoltas is only the fifth Gopher to win a men's event three years in a row in Big Ten history and the first to do so in the hammer throw.
He is the fifth Minnesota man to win three consecutive titles, the last one was Karl Erickson in the discus from 2002-04.
Minnesota's Jake Kubiatowicz (226-8) was third. Another Gopher finished sixth for 19 total points in the event.
With 32 points total, the Gophers are in first place in the men's competition after the first day of three.
The Gophers' Austin Parsons broke a 30-year program record with a throw of 236-8 in the javelin to take third place while Jak Urlacher was fifth in the pole vault (17-2 ¼).
Three Gophers made the finals of the 200-meter sprint. Devin Augustine (20.56 seconds) had the third best time in the preliminaries.
On the women's side, Minnesota's Amira Young had the fourth best time in the 200 preliminaries (23.16).
