Mihaela Melinte

Mihaela Melinte

Personal information
Full name	Mihaela Melinte
Nationality	Romanian
Born	March 27, 1975 (1975-03-27) (age 49) Bacău, Romania
Height	1.70 m (5 ft 7 in)
Weight	84 kg (185 lb)
Sport
Country	Romania
Sport	Athletics
Event(s)	Hammer throw
Achievements and titles
Personal best(s)	76.07 m (1999)
Medal record Women's Athletics Representing Romania World Championships 1999 Seville Hammer European Championships Budapest 1998 Hammer Universiade 1997 Catania Hammer 1999 Palma de Mallorca Hammer

Mihaela Melinte (born 27 March 1975 in Bacău) is a Romanian hammer thrower. She holds the world junior record, and with 76.07 metres she held the world record until Tatyana Lysenko beat it in July 2005. The twelve-time Romanian national champion, Melinte is also a former European and World champion, but has never participated in the Olympics.

She failed a drugs test at the Notturna di Milano meeting in 2000 (ruling her out of the 2000 Sydney Olympics) and she was banned from the sport for two years for taking nandrolone (an anabolic steroid). Following her ban, she never again reached a major global podium or threw over 72 metres – some way off her previous world record mark.

She took second place in the women's hammer at the 2005 European Cup Winter Throwing, but was less successful at the 2006 edition, where she finished eleventh overall. She finished fourth in both the 2007 and 2008 European Cup Winter Throwing events. She was the bronze medallist at the 2005 Jeux de la Francophonie.

Achievements

Year	Competition	Venue	Position	Notes
Representing Romania
1997	World Student Games	Catania, Italy	1st	69.84 m
	European U23 Championships	Turku, Finland	1st	70.26 m
1998	Goodwill Games	New York, United States	1st	72.64 m
	European Championships	Budapest, Hungary	1st	71.17 m
1999	World Student Games	Palma de Mallorca, Spain	1st	74.24 m
	World Championships	Sevilla, Spain	1st	75.20 m
2003	World Championships	Paris, France	6th	68.69 m
	World Athletics Final	Szombathely, Hungary	3rd	69.27 m
2005	World Championships	Helsinki, Finland	11th	64.31 m
	Jeux de la Francophonie	Niamey, Niger	3rd	61.96 m
2006	European Championships	Gothenburg, Sweden	20th	63.96 m
2007	World Championships	Osaka, Japan	33rd	62.40 m

See also

• List of doping cases in athletics

References

• Mihaela Melinte profile at IAAF
• hammerthrow.wz

Records
Preceded by Svetlana Sudak	Women's Hammer World Record Holder 4 March 1995 – 5 June 1995	Succeeded by Olga Kuzenkova
Preceded by Olga Kuzenkova	Women's Hammer World Record Holder 3 March 1997 – 11 June 1997	Succeeded by Olga Kuzenkova
Preceded by Olga Kuzenkova	Women's Hammer World Record Holder 13 May 1999 – 15 July 2005	Succeeded by Tatyana Lysenko