Last Friday in Gainesville, Marcel Lomnicky (Virginia Tech) and Nikola Lomnicka (Georgia) made NCAA history. The winning marks by the brother and sister duo from Nitra, Slovakia made them the first pair of siblings to lead the nation in the hammer throw. Both Marcel and Nikola have hit their stride in their second collegaite season, but each had a slightly different path to the hammer.

Marcel's Story

Marcel, the older of the pair by fourteen months, was the first in the family to pick up the hammer and quickly earned international honors. At the 2006 World Junior Championships in Beijing, Marcel won the bronze medal. A year later, only a few days after his twentieth birthday, he won another bronze at the European Under-23 Championships. Marcel wanted to continue throwing well, but at this point he was without a coach and knew it would be a struggle to improve without some guidance. "Those were very hard times with a lot of frustration and if I wanted to keep throwing I had to find a new coach," Marcel said. "I started looking for a school in the USA and after a couple official visits I decided on Virginia Tech."

Since arriving at Virginia Tech in January of last year, Marcel has made quick progress. At first, he was making up for lost time. Marcel trained very little in the fall prior to arrival and doubled up on workouts in the winter to make up for it. In his first year he placed 8th at the NCAA Championships in the weight throw, an implement he had not thrown until two months before the meet, and won the NCAA outdoor title. However, his mark outdoors was just under his personal best and he still ranks his World Junior medal performance as his favorite in part due to the mark. "I threw my personal best at that meet; it was the first big medal in my life and I enjoyed it very much. Victory last year at NCAA Championship would have been more fun for me if I had thrown a better mark," Marcel said.

Now, with more than a year in the new training program, the personal bests have finally arrived. "I trained the whole fall and spring under one coach, one workout, and one philosophy. I made many technical improvements and I'm still working on them." Marcel said. "I am glad that I threw my new personal best in the first meet and cannot wait to see what the rest of the season will bring." His winning throw of 74.83 meters in Gainesville added more than two meters to his best and ranks him 9th on the all time collegiate list.

Nikola's Story

Nikola's route to the hammer was less direct. After trying nearly every event in track and field, she started to watch her brother's hammer practices. After one year of watching, she picked up the hammer too and caught on quite quickly. "I was learning technique quite fast which motivated me a lot. My brother was the same; he learned technique very fast. We think it might be because when we were younger we both did figure skating for about 3 years, so we were kind of used to spinning," Nikola jokes. While she did not earn the junior medals her brother did, she quickly qualified for the finals at the World Youth Championships in 2005, where she placed 10th.

Her plan to come to study in America started quite early. Nikola : "I am type of person who doesn't really like to stay in one place too long. I heard that a Slovak hammer thrower [and four-time NCAA champion] Libor Charfreitag and his sister Eva were studying at SMU and I guess that was the first time I started to think about coming to the USA as well. I knew I didn't want to stay at home after graduating high school and I knew I wanted to throw far, so going to the USA seemed like a perfect solution for me." After looking at schools, she choose Georgia. However, her language test scores were just two points shy of qualifying academically. Instead, she decided to train under coach Glenn McAtee at Clemson. But yet another roadblock stood in her way. McAtee was unexpectedly fired upon her arrival and she decided to wait out the year with the new coach and see how things went. While she threw a new personal best, she knew she had even more untapped potential and decided to transfer to Georgia at the end of the season.

In her first year at Georgia, the success has continued. After failing to qualify for the NCAA Indoor Championships in the weight throw last year, she placed fifth at the meet this year with a new best of 20.32 meters. She has already thrown personal bests in two of her first three meets outdoors and added over two meters to her personal best. "This year is completely different," Nikola said. "I'm stronger than I have ever been so far and my technique is slowly improving as well. I think that one of the keys to throwing far, besides quality sleep, is that you really have to want it. I live with the hammer throw and I try to do everything that can help me to keep improving."

A Friendly Rivalry

Ever since Nikola picked up the hammer, the two siblings have worked together to improve. "Suddenly, we had a subject to talk about at home and we talked for long hours. As an older brother I always try to help and motivate her as much as I can. She motivates me too of course," Marcel said. For Nikola, her brother's success has helped push her to new bests. "Most of the time my brother has been more successful than me. He was always throwing far and winning all kinds of competitions. I wanted be like him and so it was a big motivation for me."

In their younger days, Marcel and Nikola often challenged each other in practice and at compeetitions. Even now that they train with different coaches, they still motivate each other by phone and throw in the occasional friendly wager. While they don't get to see each other as often as they used to, both look forward to competitions like the Florida Relays, where they get to see each other throw.

Looking Ahead

Both Marcel and Nikola have big goals for this season. In addition to throwing well at the NCAA Championships, Marcel also wants to set new bests and make the finals at this year's European Championships in Barcelona. Nikola, on the other hand, has had to readjust her goals. Her original goal was to throw 66 meters, which she met last weekend with her throw of 66.07 meters. Now she is aiming for 68 meters so that she can also qualify for the European Championships. In any event, they will both now be favorites heading into June's NCAA Championships where they will once again look to make history.

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