DUSHANBE, May 6, 2013, Asia-Plus  -- On Sunday May 5, a known Tajik hummer thrower Dilshod Nazarov with 77.61 meters won a silver med fro Tajikistan at the Seiko Golden Grand Prix Japanese leg of IAAF World Challenge.

Dilshod Nazarov finished behind Czech Olympic finalist Lukas Melich 79.00.  Russian hummer thrower Sergey Litvinov with 76.49 came third.

The Golden Grand Prix is a track and field competition at the Todoroki Athletics Stadium in Kawasaki, Japan as part of the IAAF World Challenge Meetings.  It was first organized in 2011 and sponsored by Seiko.  It replaced the Osaka Grand Prix as the major athletics meet in Japan.

Dilshod Nazarov (born 6 May 1982) is a Tajik athlete who specializes in the hammer throw.  He has represented his country at the Olympic Games on two occasions (in 2004 and 2008).  He has also competed at the World Championships in Athletics, but has been most successful at regional competitions: he won medals at four consecutive Asian Athletics Championships and was the hammer champion at the 2006 Asian Games. He won his first global medal (a silver medal) in 2010 at the IAAF Continental Cup.

His first noteworthy international result was a bronze medal at the 1997 West Asian Games.  He made his debut on the global stage with a fifth place at the 2000 World Junior Championships.  Nazarov then finished fourth at the 2002 Asian Championships in Colombo, and won a bronze medal the next year in Manila.  He took part in the inaugural Afro-Asian Games and managed to win the silver medal.  Another medal came at the 2003 Central Asian Games in Dushanbe, where he took the hammer gold for the hosts.

Participating in the 2004 Summer Olympics, he got no mark in the qualifying round and thus failed to make it through to the second round.  He started the next year with an appearance at the 2005 Islamic Solidarity Games, where he took his country''s sole gold medal of the tournament.  At the 2005 Asian Championships in Incheon Nazarov won a silver medal.

At the 2006 Asian Games Nazarov finally won a gold medal.  Nazarov''s gold medal was celebrated as the first gold medal of Tajikistan at the Asian Games in any sport.  In addition it was their first Asian Games medal of any kind in athletics.  At the 2007 Asian Championships, he won the silver medal.

Representing Asia-Pacific, he came second at the 2010 IAAF Continental Cup, finishing just behind newly crowned European Champion Libor Charfreitag.

Dilshod Nazarov is the president of the Tajikistan IAAF Member Federation.