Discus party animal Harting ends German athletics drought By Andreas Schirmer and John Bagratuni, dpa

London (dpa) - Robert Harting of Germany is an excellent discus thrower - but what he really excels at is the celebrations.

On Tuesday, he got his latest opportunity after adding Olympic gold to successive world titles from 2009 and 2011, while the 82,000-strong crowd, mainly Brits, roared their approval.

The trademark routine came first, ripping his shirt into pieces and posing with his muscular body for the photographers and fans. The lap of honour followed.

And as the hurdles already happened to be there for the women‘s 100m final, he showed his skill by leaping over each one to mighty cheers. If that wasn‘t enough, he jumped the rope in front of the Olympic cauldron, and carefully touched one of the 205 pillars it consists of.

"Tearing the shirt is my trademark and I am addicted to it. If you see me coming out of a stadium without a shirt you can be assured that I have won," he said.

"The judges didn‘t want to let me over the hurdles. They provoked me," the 27-year-old joked. "I knew (the later gold medallist) Sally Pearson was there. Perhaps she saw some effective technique from my side."

"I‘ve dreamed of this since I was 12 years old," he added. "I first picked up a discus in 2000, from then on I worked hard to get here."

Harting faced some hard work on a drizzly and cool night and did not get the winning throw of 68.27 metres until his fifth attempt, finally surpassing long-time leader Ehsan Hadadi of Iran, who took silver with 68.18m.

"It was definitely exciting. I am a little surprised. Even the winning throw was far from perfect," he said. "In the end I was lucky."

Luck or not, Germany delighted in its first athletics gold since Heike Drechsler‘s long jump title, while Harting stretched his unbeaten run to 29 competitions since 2010.

Harting‘s victory and winning streak was even more remarkable as he has been battling a knee injury for years and things took a turn to the worse in the autumn.

"I want this damn gold even if I am confined to a wheelchair afterwards," he said at the time.

"It is a wonderful moment because the fight was rewarded. The last three years have really changed me because of the pain. The knee hurts. I will need to undergo more treatment. I can only do 10 throws in a row with full power," he said.

This badly affects his training, but Harting nevertheless enjoyed his best career season with a first throw beyond 70m at 70.66m ahead of the Olympics.

But Harting is neither eying the world record of 74.08m then East German Juergen Schult threw in 1986, nor is he wasting any thoughts on a possible performance at the 2016 Games in Rio.

"Brazil is a nice and warm country but I will first enjoy the night and then see what will happen," Harting said. dpa ac bag hl