Wlodarczyk starts the year with a win

Poland 's women's Hammer world champion and world record holder Anita Wlodarczyk opened her season with an impressive 75.13m to win at the Meeting Grand Prix IAAF de Dakar - an IAAF World Challenge meeting - in Dakar, Senegal, on Saturday.

Her throw was even better than the 75.05m with which she started last season and which culminated in her winning the 2009 World Championships gold medal with a world record 77.96m last August.

Wlodarczyk showed her good form after her recent training stint in South Africa with a first round 73.29m and then followed it up with her winning throw one round later.

Moldova's 23-year-old Marina Marghieva was respectably near her own national record of 72.53m with her second round 71.14m, which got her the runners up slot behind Wlodarczyk.

Russia's former world record holder and reigning European champion Tatyana Lysenko had to settle for third with 70.03m, well short of the 75.66m she produced in February, which remains the best throw in the world this year.

The meeting was also the start of the inaugural season of the IAAF Hammer Throw Challenge which has 11 meetings and an overall first prize of $30,000.