Category Archives: Rotational Shot

Kara Winger to present at the 2024 ITCCCA clinic!

The annual ITCCCA clinic will take place on January 12-13 at the Eaglewood Resort in Itasca, Illinois, with arguably the best lineup of throws presenters in ITCCCA clinic history.  Dave Astrauskas of the University of Wisconsin will open the proceedings on Friday with a presentation on developing discus technique. I saw Dave give a version of this talk at the recent National Throws Clinic in Portage, and I think coaches will find a lot they can use in Dave’s approach.

The second session on Friday will feature two throws speakers. Pat Trofimuk of Waubonsie Valley High School will conduct a session titled “Fundamentals of the Throws” in which he will demonstrate a series of simple drills that can be used to teach and sharpen rotational throwing technique. Feel free to take out your phone and record during this one, and you’ll walk away with a small library of extremely useful drills.

Also during session two, ITCCCA is proud to present Kara Winger, the four-time Olympian, national record holder, and 2022 World silver medalist in the javelin. Her first talk of the weekend will be titled “Train Hard and Stay Healthy: Incorporating Rehab into throws training.” In this presentation, Kara will explain some simple and effective exercises that can be incorporated into your throwers’ daily workouts to help them stay healthy over the course of a long season.

Kara will take the stage again in the third and final Friday evening session to offer advice on how to help your athletes deliver their top performances at the biggest competitions. We’ve all seen how tough it can be for a young thrower to find their rhythm at a major comp. Kara faced those challenges at four Olympic Trials, four Olympics, and five World Championships, and learned much in the process. If you are on speaking terms with coaches from other events, you’ll want to give them a heads up about this presentation as Kara’s advice will be applicable to all sorts of athletes. 

On Saturday, the ITCCCA clinic will feature four sessions you won’t want to miss.  Josh Freeman, former Illinois state champion and collegiate all-American, will team with his wife and current world-class discus thrower Alex Morgan to detail and demonstrate shot put fundamentals.

Kara will take the stage again for session two to discuss the qualities that make an effective coach. Over her long career, Kara worked with some outstanding mentors, and she’ll give tips on how to be your best self when dealing with your athletes. This is another presentation that will appeal to coaches of all events.

Josh and Alex take over again to present on the discus for session three, with Alex demonstrating the approach that made her 2023 Oceania champion.

The final season on Saturday will feature a panel discussion with Josh, Alex, Kara, and long time collegiate throws coach Scott Cappos, who recently authored an excellent book on shot and disc technique and training which will be available for purchase at the ITCCCA clinic. During this session, you’ll be able to ask the panelists anything you’d like about technique, training, and/or life at the highest levels of our sport.

In addition to Scott’s shot and disc manual, the book “Training for Gold: The Plan that made Daniel Ståhl an Olympic Champion” will also be available for purchase for $25 at this year’s clinic. This is a book that longtime Illinois high school throws coach Roger Einbecker and I put together with Vésteinn Hafsteinsson who coached Daniel to Olympic and World Championship gold medals in the discus. 

The book details the training plan Vésteinn used during the 2020-2021 Olympic year, and is full of insights into how to devise and execute a lifting and throwing program that will bring out the best in your athletes.

If you have been wavering about signing up for this year’s clinic and wondering if it will be worth the time and effort, wonder no more. You won’t find a better lineup of presenters anywhere.

One last thing.

I mentioned having seen Dave Astrauskas present at the 2023 National Throws Clinic, and I just wanted to give folks an early heads up that Mark Harsha and the National Throws Association will host another event next December featuring top throws coaches. The 2023 clinic featured John Smith, Jerry Clayton, Dave, and JC Lambert. It won’t be easy to top that lineup in 2024, but Mark is determined to try. Stay tuned for more details!

The Monday Morning Meathead: September 4th edition

Mitch and Ryan Crouser in Budapest. Photo courtesy of Mitch, Team USA and USATF.

Hold my cape

I spoke with Mitch Crouser by phone during the recent World Athletics Championships. His son Ryan had just taken gold with what Mitch described as, “the best throw of his career considering the circumstances.”

After winning his sixth US title in early July, Ryan embarked on a European tour consisting of three meets in eight days, all victories. His throws in those comps were, according to Mitch, “not great technically, but showed a lot of horsepower.” At the final stop, on July 23rd in London, Ryan was fighting a cold. “I talked to him on the phone,” Mitch recalled, “and he sounded terrible.”

Ryan assured his father that he “felt better than he sounded,” then went out and threw 23.07m.

“He was,” says Mitch, “starting to dial it in.”

After London, Ryan returned to his training base in Arkansas and produced one of his best practice sessions of the year, a pleasant surprise since normally, according to Mitch, Ryan’s practice distances would fall off a bit after returning from an overseas trip. “Everything,” he recalls, “was looking good for Budapest.”

But, the next morning Ryan called with unexpected news. His left calf was so sore he could barely walk.

At first, they assumed he’d suffered a muscle strain or tear, but an ultrasound detected no tissue damage. And it was strange, Mitch says, that Ryan had felt no pain during the workout. “Also,” he explained, “with a muscle tear, it should hurt worse when you try to walk, but in this case walking made it feel a little better.”

With the Worlds just three weeks away, Ryan began physical therapy including deep tissue massage, but he could not lift or throw. “It was really frustrating,” Mitch recalled. “Three weeks before Worlds is not the time to unload.”

Still thinking the problem was in a muscle or tendon, Ryan and Mitch got ready to fly to Serbia for a pre-Worlds training camp. But the night before they were meant to leave, Ryan’s physio and fishing buddy Andy Glidewell suggested getting a Doppler ultrasound to rule out the possibility of a blood clot which, according to the Centers for Disease Control, “can be a serious risk for some long-distance travelers.”

The scan revealed two clots in Ryan’s lower left leg. 

Ryan called his father immediately. “Hey,” he said. “We’re not going to Budapest.”

Doctors provided by USATF and the USOC immediately put Ryan on a high dose of blood thinners, to which he responded well. The pain in his calf diminished, and within a day or two he could walk more comfortably.

But it was still hard to imagine him competing at Worlds. Getting to Budapest would require a long flight, which raised the possibility of one of the clots breaking up and causing a pulmonary embolism. And even if he made the trip, what were the odds that, after three weeks of enforced idleness, Ryan would be able to hold his own against Joe Kovacs, Tom Walsh, and Darlan Romani?

The doctors let the blood thinners work for a few days, then laid out the risks Ryan would face on an overseas flight. “It was,” Mitch says, “a “very sobering conversation.”

The effectiveness of the blood thinners, the size of the clots (small) and their location (at the end of a limb) all worked in Ryan’s favor, but the possibility remained that something could go wrong.

(I’d like to note that during a recent episode of the Throw Big Throw Far podcast, I incorrectly described the clots as “big.” As I was writing this article, Mitch notified me that one of the medical staffers they worked with heard the podcast and wanted to make it clear that the blood clots were actually small, deep vein thrombosis (DVT) clots. Had they been “big,” traveling to Budapest would have been out of the question for Ryan.)

After conferring with the doctors, Mitch and Ryan engaged in some heart-to-heart talks. With his calf starting to feel better, Ryan was confident that the nine months of preparation he’d put in before contracting the blood clots would allow him to be competitive at Worlds–if he could get there. “I can walk again,” he told his father. “I think I can still do something.”

They considered the odds, and decided to put their trust in the effectiveness of the blood thinners. Six days before the competition, they boarded a plane for Europe. On the advice of the doctors, Mitch and Ryan flew into Vienna so they could have access to the top-notch hospitals there in case Ryan needed care upon landing. He did not, and after the plane touched down, they traveled on to Budapest by car.

Upon arrival, Ryan did a brief “shakeout” session at a facility near the hotel. According to Mitch, “he looked pretty good technically. The pain in his calf was still there, but not nearly at the level it had been.”

A big moment came during their next training session, where Ryan took his first hard throws in three weeks.

“We needed to know what we were dealing with before competing,” Mitch explained. “So we cranked it up, and one thing we found out right away was that his throws from a static start were not what they had been.” 

Shot put fans have gotten used to Ryan beginning competitions with at least one attempt from a static start before switching to his full windup and–as of the 2023 season–his now famous “Crouser slide.” It’s his way of setting his timing and posting a solid mark with very little risk of fouling. It can also be intimidating to the rest of the field when Ryan opens with a big throw from the static, as he did earlier this season at the LA Grand Prix, dropping a 23.23m first-round bomb on the way to setting his 23.56m World Record.

But after Ryan was unable to approach 22 meters with the static at the practice session in Budapest, he and Mitch decided to go exclusively with the slide in the competition.

The automatic qualifying mark was 21.40m, and if there was ever a day when Ryan needed to go one-and-done, this was it. With his lack of fitness and the final scheduled to take place that night, he needed to conserve energy. Of course, after the putters warmed up, a thunderstorm hit and delayed the competition for an hour.

When matters resumed, Ryan put his first attempt out to 21.48m.

He was first up that night in the final, and all eyes were on him as he stepped in the ring hoping, says Mitch, to “put some pressure on the field.”

Ryan’s 22.63m opener did just that, and with his competitors looking sluggish (The heat? The stress of having the qualification and final on the same day? The shock of seeing Ryan throw so far after being laid up for three weeks?) it seemed possible that the competition was over before it had begun in earnest.

But great athletes are not inclined to coast, and Ryan extended his lead with a 22.98m haymaker to begin round two.

Italy’s Leonardo Fabbri did his best to liven things up with a 22.34m PB in round three, but nobody else got within a meter of Crouser until Walsh (22.05m) and Kovacs (22.12m) found a little rhythm in the fifth stanza.

Then Fabbri, throwing directly before Crouser, dropped his fifth-rounder just at the front edge of the 23-meter line. (By the way, does anyone else remember the days when the idea of needing a 23-meter line at a World Championships would have been laughable?)

He fouled it, and fouled his sixth attempt as well. Then Ryan put an end to any “what if Fabbri had saved that throw?” speculation by going 23.51m on the final put of the night.

This one is definitely a keeper. Photo courtesy of Mitch Crouser.

“After all he’d been through,” Mitch said, “and with his static throw down a meter, he caught that one as close to perfect as he could.”

Since returning home, Ryan has remained on blood thinners. He’ll have regular Doppler scans to make sure the clots are dissolving, and will see how he feels over the next couple of weeks before deciding whether to compete at the Diamond League final in mid-September.

Ladies and gentlemen, your Budapest medalists. Photo courtesy of Mitch Crouser.

As to what caused the clots in the first place, it’s hard to say. According to Mitch, clots do not run in the family, so they might have resulted from an unlucky combination of factors. The flight home from London could have contributed. And after he’d been back for a couple of days, Ryan realized he’d lost his sense of smell. which might mean he’d contracted Covid.

(Let me take a second here to correct another mistake I made on the podcast. When discussing possible causes of Ryan’s blood clots, I stated definitively that he was suffering from Covid after his European trip. Not true. Losing one’s sense of smell suggests but does not prove Covid.)

Anyway, according to the American Heart Association, Covid increases the likelihood of contracting blood clots. So does dehydration, and the day before his calf started hurting, Ryan did two hard training sessions in 100-degree heat.

He may never know the exact cause, but either way, few who witnessed the men’s shot comp at this World Championships will ever forget it.

Family Man

Not long ago, I realized that it had been ages since I’d caught up with Cory Martin. so I gave him a shout. He took my call while driving from Louisville, Kentucky, back home to Bloomington, Indiana, after putting in a day’s work at his new job as throwing coach for the University of Louisville Cardinals. 

In his younger years, Cory was part of a remarkable group of Auburn University throwers coached by Jerry Clayton. Among them were Jake Dunkelberger, the 2007 NCAA hammer champ, and Edis Elkasević, the NCAA indoor and outdoor shot winner in 2005 (and later the coach of discus great Sandra Perković).

The Martin family. Photo courtesy of Cory.

“It was an extremely competitive environment,” Cory recalled. “Edis and I used to have ab workout contests after our lifts to see who would quit first. Having him around helped me a lot. I was meant to be a hammer guy when I went to Auburn, but because I got to throw against Edis every day and found myself pushing to be as good as him, I ended up becoming a pretty good shot putter.”

“Pretty good” indeed. At the 2008 NCAA Outdoor Championships, Cory blasted a 20.35m PB on his last attempt to snatch the title from Arizona State’s Ryan Whiting.  Two days earlier, he’d thrown a final-round PB in the hammer to take the win over Dunkelberger.

That summer, Cory embarked on a professional career, joining a powerful group of American putters, guys like Adam Nelson, Christian Cantwell, Reese Hoffa, and Whiting, as they plied their trade across the globe. 

It was not an easy transition.

“The biggest thing facing anyone coming out of college,” he says, “is the institutional support goes away. After four years of being a priority and having a set routine, suddenly you’re on your own. You have to figure out your own schedule, arrange your own travel. A lot of times when you go to meets, your coach isn’t with you. My first year on the circuit, my agent called one day and said, ‘Hey, I got you into a hammer meet in Brazil, but you’ve got to fly to Miami tomorrow to get a visa.’ The next day, I was sitting by myself in a La Quinta Inn in Miami thinking ‘What am I doing here?’ I called my wife and said, ‘I’m coming home,’ but she kicked me in the butt and the next day I went to Brazil and threw a PB. I was really lucky to have her in my corner.”

When newbies on the pro circuit ask his advice, Cory tells them the first two years might be tough, but things will get better if they keep grinding.

Cory had his own breakthrough during his second year on the tour when he made the US squad for the 2010 Indoor Worlds and threw 22.10m outdoors at the Tucson Elite meet. 

His best finish at an international championships came at the 2013 Outdoor Worlds in Moscow, where he came in ninth. But by then, Cory was just about ready to move on from the “me first” world of elite athletics. 

“Not long ago,” he recalled, “I talked to a thrower who was at Auburn when I was training there as a pro and he said, ‘Don’t take this wrong, but you were kind of mean in those days.’ Looking back, I can understand why he thought that, because as a pro you have to be selfish and you can’t apologize for it. You feel the pressure of trying to make a living, and if you don’t do well, you’re out of the sport. So you have to be self-centered, you have to build up an ego for protection. In 2010, when I had my best year, I was really selfish. That’s just the reality of the sport.”

But he and Taryn wanted to start a family, and Cory was ready to follow his father into coaching. Cory’s dad had made his mark as a high school football coach, but Cory had his sights set on the NCAA, 

In 2014, he was hired by the legendary Ron Helmer to take over the throwing program at Indiana University, a dream job that allowed Cory and Taryn to settle in the town of Bloomington, Indiana, where they’d both grown up.

Years went by, and Cory employed the knowledge he’d gained from coaches like Clayton and John Smith to produce numerous All-Americans, Big Ten champions, and school record-holders. Meanwhile, he and Taryn welcomed a son and a daughter into the world.

The winds of change started blowing in the spring of 2022, though, when Helmer announced that the 2023 season would be his last. Whoever took over the program would want to bring in their own staff, and the prospect of moving on led to many late-night conversations in the Martin household.

“I was confident with the coaching part,” Cory explained. ”I knew wherever I ended up, I could get things going in the right direction. The hard question was, ‘How would this affect our family?’”

Cory and Taryn tried to keep everything normal around their house as they weighed different options.  Earlier this summer, Cory decided to accept an offer from the University of Louisville. Impressed by the city, the facilities, and the support for athletics on the part of both the university and the community, they were excited about this new chapter in Cory’s career. 

When it came time to tell the kids, they weren’t too worried about how their daughter Harper would react. She was four and hadn’t started school yet, so relocating would probably have less of an impact on her. But their son Knox was seven, and moving to Louisville would require him to leave behind his school, his friends and his little league teammates.  

Fortunately, Louisville is home to the Louisville Slugger Museum and bat factory, a baseball shrine along the lines of the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, and a visit there was enough to convince Knox that moving to Kentucky might not be a bad idea. “I want to say we visited the museum on a Wednesday,” Cory recalled. “And after our tour, Knox asked if we could move by Friday.” 

Knox Martin, reporting for duty. Photo courtesy of Cory.

Buying and selling a home is no simple matter though, which explains the long daily commute. Four or five days a week throughout the summer, Cory hit the road at 6am to make the two-hour drive to Louisville. In the evenings, he’d do his best to get back to Bloomington in time to help Knox hone his hitting stroke. There were days when Cory found himself wondering if he should just get an apartment in Louisville while he and Taryn navigated the logistics of moving, but he couldn’t stand the idea of not seeing Taryn and the kids every night. 

Another tricky aspect of making the jump to Louisville was that it meant leaving behind the throwing family Cory had established at IU. 

After Heller’s announcement, Cory’s group knew that he would likely be moving on as well. That created some anxiety, which Cory did his best to manage as the 2023 campaign approached.

It was only natural for Cory’s IU kids to want to follow him to his new destination. Getting to throw for him was, after all, a big reason why most had come to Indiana in the first place. But, even in the era of the transfer portal, switching schools is no easy matter. For one thing, as the 2023 season progressed, Cory still had no idea where he would end up. And, once he did secure a new position, there was no guarantee that his new school would have scholarships available to offer any of his throwers who wanted to transfer.

Harper at the plate. Photo courtesy of Cory.

One IU thrower who felt especially anxious about her future was Jayden Ulrich, who developed into a 59-meter discus thrower under Cory’s tutelage. They had built a close bond, and even after drawing a lot of interest from other schools through the portal, Jayden told Cory, “Wherever you’re going, I’m going.”

Cory says he encouraged Jayden to explore all options, but in the end was thrilled when she was in fact able to follow him to Louisville. She’ll have two years of eligibility remaining, and Cory says the “sky’s the limit” for Jayden in the disc.

The third piece of the puzzle Cory faced was how to create a new throwing family at Louisville. A priority this summer was sitting down with each returning Louisville thrower for a one-on-one meeting during which he reminded them that he was experiencing change just as they were, and promised to come into his new position with an open mind and treat each of them as individuals. 

“It was fun,” he says, “to talk to the kids and find some commonalities to help them get comfortable with me. Coaching is all about communication, and going forward I’ve got to figure out the best way to reach each athlete.”

Having Jayden on board should speed the process. “My new throwers,” he explained, “can look at Jayden and say, ‘Oh, that’s what he means,’ which will be a big help.”

The bird might be angry but the kids are happy, and that’s what counts! Photo courtesy of Cory.

“Wherever you’re coaching and whoever you’re coaching,” he continued. “It’s all about being an educator and understanding what motivates a kid.”

“And if there’s one thing I’ve learned from practicing baseball with my son in our backyard,” he says, “it’s patience.”

On that note, we said our goodbyes so Cory could turn his attention back to the road. The one that led to his family.

They’re back. Almost.

Something besides the world’s best beer is brewing in Germany these days. 

After a tough 2022 European Senior Championships at which German throwers took just two medals (jav gold by Julian Webber, disc silver by Kristin Pudenz), and consecutive World Championships with no German men in the shot final and no German women on the shot podium, it appears that a batch of fresh talent is fermenting.

At the recent European U20 Championships held in Jerusalem, German teens tossed their way to nine medals including two in both the men’s and women’s shot, and a sweep in the women’s disc. 

Among the most promising of those youngsters is Nina Chioma Ndubuisi, who took shot put gold with a throw of 17.97m. 

Nina Chioma Ndubuisi. Photo courtesy of Sona Maleterova and European Athletics.

According to Christian Sperling, the German national shot and disc coach for juniors, Nina was a heptathlete until 2021. She decided to focus exclusively on throwing after finishing third in the shot at the European U20s in Tallinn with a mark of 15.71m, and has improved quite a bit since even though she currently lacks the bulk and weight room strength associated with 18-meter shot putters.

“Nina,” according to Coach Sperling, “is very good in jumping and sprinting. This is why she is able to throw the shot so far with a body weight under 80 kilograms.”

Jerusalem bronze shot medalist Chantal Rimke. Photo courtesy of Sona Maleterova and European Athletics.

She and other young German throwers have also benefited from a series of training camps hosted by the federation where Coach Sperling says, “the best athletes in every developmental stage are together with the best experts in Germany.” 

Those training camps were begun in 2022, as was an annual series of five developmental competitions called the “Deutscher Wurf-Cup.”

Will such efforts eventually pay off with senior European, World and Olympic medals?

According to American throws meister John Smith, who coached his wife Connie Price-Smith against the likes of Olympic and 3x World champion Astrid Kumbernuss during the glory days of German putting, the answer is yes.

Melina Wepiwe, Curly Brown, and Lea Bork swept the discus podium in Jerusalem. Photo courtesy of Getty Images and European Athletics.

Smith remembers when “nobody thought the day would come that American women would beat the Germans. A top German thrower would have been ashamed to lose to an American.” 

Early adoption of the rotational shot technique eventually gave US throwers a leg up and put Germany in its current catch-up mode, he says, but they are now making a strong move to close the gap.

Jerusalem shot gold medalist Lasse Schulz. Photo courtesy of Sona Maleterova and European Athletics.

“They’ve gone missing for a few years in the shot,” he says, “but they’ve got a good young crop and it won’t be long before they reappear at the World level.”

It’s interesting to note that Nina has accepted a scholarship to the University of Texas, where she will be coached by Zeb Sion and presumably train in proximity to Val Allman, who along with newly-minted champ Lagi Tausaga, has helped keep German women off the discus podium at the last two Worlds. 

Will Nina flourish in the American collegiate system, learn the secrets behind American rotational dominance and use them to accelerate the revival of German shot putting?

Possibly.

And if so, will the Germans reciprocate by teaching us how to mass produce outstanding beer and delectable chocolate?

Personally, I would consider that a fair exchange.

The Monday Morning Meathead: August 2nd Edition

Laulauga Tausaga hit a big PB in Eugene. Photo courtesy of TrackTown USA.

Confidence!

Many throwers have a rough time during their first year as a professional, but in 2022 Laulauga Tausaga made the transition from amateur to pro look easy peasy lemon squeezy by breaking 60 meters in fourteen of her nineteen comps and smashing a PB of 64.49m at the USATF Championships. She also qualified for her second World Championships and first Diamond League final. 

Still, she was not satisfied.

“That’s how it is,” explained John Dagata, Lagi’s coach for the past two seasons. “With high-level athletes, nothing is good enough. When we looked back at her accomplishments in 2022, her reaction was, ‘Why didn’t I medal at Worlds?’”

With another World Championships coming up in 2023, Lagi pushed hard during fall sessions at the Chula Vista Elite Athlete Center, where she and Dagata train. By January, according to Dagata, Lagi was “throwing farther than ever,” on a daily basis. 

“Some of the Chinese athletes I coach, who didn’t really know her, saw Lagi throw and were like, ‘How is her PB only 64.49m?’ That’s how good she looked.”

Then, Lagi’s progress was interrupted by, of all things, a bout of gout, the cause of which, according to the Mayo Clinic website, can be hard to pin down.

Coach Dagata says that Lagi had experienced some mild gout-like symptoms in 2022, but never missed a day of practice because of it. Then, one morning in February of this year, she called to say that her ankle was swollen and so “locked up” that she could not walk.

That forced them to shut down her training for several days, and to limit the number of throws she took for the next several weeks. Essentially, Dagata says, they “lost the month of February.”

A 63.92m toss in her season opener at Triton in April was encouraging, but Dagata says that all the lost practice time made Lagi’s technique unstable. Instead of throwing consistently well as she had in January, they started having “one good practice, then one bad practice.”

After Triton, Lagi went 60.43m at the Pacific Coast Invitational, followed by 62.74m at Mt. SAC, and 60.37m at Tucson.

Matters came to a head when she threw 60.34m at the USATF LA Grand Prix in late May.

“We had a serious meeting afterwards,” recalls Dagata. “I told her I was not happy with the way the season was going, that we had to find a way to get consistency back in our training, and that with only a month before USAs, we had to do it immediately.”

Lagi agreed, and they decided to “go backwards to go forward,” which in Lagi’s case meant switching to a “static start” where she would pause for a moment after winding up at the back of the ring. The pause would limit the amount of speed she could create at the start of her throws, but it would also make it easier to keep her balance and hit sound positions as she moved through the ring. 

As is often the case with technical adjustments, this one did not pay immediate dividends. Lagi dropped to 59.84m at a comp in Chula Vista before departing for Europe where she dropped even further to 55.34m in Italy before rebounding to throw 62.62m at the Paris Diamond League meeting. 

Back in the States, she went 58.65m at another Chula Vista comp on June 18th, then 56.61m a week later in New York.

It was about that time, though, that the static start throws began to feel more comfortable. 

“Practices started getting better,” says Dagata. “Then, during the five or six days we were in Oregon leading up to USAs, we were locked in.”

Lagi and Dagata knew that she could throw farther using her regular, more active start, but they decided to stick to the static at USAs. 

Dagata explained that “with the disc, you have to be consistent. If Lagi loses control and starts to rip it out of the back, she might end up with a great throw or it might go 50 meters, and then she starts to doubt herself. Consistency gives her confidence, and the static start gave us the best chance for consistency.”

With Val Allman receiving a Budapest bye as Diamond League champion, the US had four spots to fill in the women’s disc and Lagi used her modified start to stake her claim to one of them. During the first five rounds she went 62.13m, Foul, 62.67m, 60.96m, Foul. That was good enough to ensconce her securely in second place, and when she walked into the ring for her sixth and final attempt, Lagi was guaranteed a spot on the team for Worlds.

That being the case, she and Dagata decided to have another go at using a full windup.

“Her confidence on that last throw was so good,” Dagata says. “She had made the team, and while she was waiting she did a couple of dry throws off to the side and looked really good. Then, she got in and rushed her entry and only used three quarters of the ring. I have no idea how she kept that throw from going into the cage. It was unreal.”

And far.  

A 65.46m PB to be exact.

Which windup will she use in Budapest? 

At the 2022 Worlds, it took 61.21m to get through qualification, a distance that Lagi surpassed twice using the static start at USAs. 

Dagata says they will wait and see how the next couple of weeks of training play out before deciding on their plan of attack for Worlds, but as at USAs, the most important factor will be Lagi’s confidence.

“One thing a lot of people don’t understand,” Dagata explained, “is that athletes like Lagi live their lives by every competition. Most throwers don’t get great funding, and they feel like they are one bad meet from losing what they do get, and that puts them under a lot of pressure. I try to balance that out by keeping a positive outlook and reminding her all the time of the great things she’s done.”

Tom Walsh at last year’s Diamond League final in Zurich. Photo courtesy of me!

Can’t you hear me knocking?

Speaking of maintaining a positive outlook, did anyone else notice that Tom Walsh went 22.58m at the recent London Diamond League meeting? 

That was Tom’s best mark since his 22.90m bomb at the 2019 Worlds, and a sure sign that the man cannot take a hint.

If he could, he’d have accepted by now that Fate has no intention of letting him be the World’s Greatest Shot Putter. To many, that would have been clear after he shattered the World Championships record by 67 centimeters that night in Doha and ended up finishing third.

Tom got another reminder at the 2021 Games when he hit 22.47m–tied for the best ever pre-Crouser throw at an Olympics–and once again finished third. 

He was faced with even more discouragement at the 2022 Worlds when an American sweep kept him off the podium at an Olympics or outdoor Worlds for the first time since he finished fourth in Beijing in 2015.

What keeps him going? In an interview conducted last year, Tom told me that he takes a lot of motivation from proving people wrong. “Plenty of people over my career have told me I’m not the guy,” he explained. “I love showing them I am the guy.”

Tom also credited his support team, two members of which–strength coach Angus Ross and sports psychologist John Quinn–have been with him for years. “They challenge me,” Tom said. “Whether it’s by changing up my training programs or getting me to think outside the box.”

His ultimate goal?

“Being the best thrower of all time.”

And if you think he was taken aback by the rise of 2022 Worlds bronze medalist Josh Awotunde, or by Joe Kovacs breaking 23 meters last September, think again.

Tom says that seeing Kovacs–his elder by three years–hit a big PB, only inspired him more.

“I love it,” he said. “I still want to throw a long way and I still believe I can. I just have to keep knocking at the door.” 

A man in full

For the book about Daniel Ståhl I’ve been working on with Vésteinn Hafsteinsson and Roger Einbecker, we asked some of Daniel’s friends and colleagues to share anecdotes about the Big Fella. Many were kind enough to do so, and I think fans of the sport will enjoy reading these little glimpses into his life and career.

One especially lovely piece came from 2016 Olympic discus champ Chris Harting, who wrote about a night before a meet in Finland when he, Daniel, Simon Pettersson, and Kristjan Čeh waded out into a shallow lake and talked about life in the fading light of a late summer sun.

I thought about Chris and about that piece recently when my wife’s sister who lives in Berlin sent me a link to a newspaper interview he gave last month.

In it, Chris discusses some difficult personal issues he’s dealt with over the past couple of years, and opens up about his battle with depression.

In a world where young men are told by their favorite Youtubers or podcasters or whatever those idiots are called that the way to become popular is to embrace a version of masculinity that Neanderthals would have found regressive, it was refreshing to see Chris speak in such an honest and vulnerable way. And I know that someone, somewhere is going to read that article and realize that if it is okay for a 6’10” inch Olympic champion to seek help, it’s okay for them too.

The Monday Morning Meathead: July 19th Edition

Good things come to those who wait…and wait. Your 2023 USATF women’s shot medalists: Adelaide Aquilla, Maggie Ewen, and Jalani Davis. Photo courtesy of TrackTown USA.

Hurry up and wait

I once helped out at a middle school meet where the person in charge of the discus decided that after each throw, the athlete should remain in the ring until the measurement was recorded. This created much ridiculousness, as those who remembered to follow this new “rule” inevitably got in the way when the guy tried to pull and read the tape, and those who forgot and walked out after their disc landed had their throw nullified. 

I was among several coaches who tried to explain to the man that there was no “stay in the ring until after the measurement” rule and that he’d have a much easier time running the event the normal way, but he refused to listen. He had been put in charge and would manage the ring as he saw fit.

I thought of that gentleman as I watched via the USATF.TV webcast while officials made a hash of the women’s shot at the recent 2023 Toyota USATF Outdoor Championships. Much to the relief of my wife, I’ve reached the point where I expect and forgive the inevitable laser malfunctions and no longer feel compelled to scream, “Just use a damn measuring tape!” at my laptop while watching throws comps.

And there did seem to be laser-induced delays that night in Eugene, but it quickly became clear that something else was contributing to the glacial pace of each round. The camera angle used on the webcast made it possible to see the timer mounted near the ring, and for some reason the officials would not allow a thrower to step in for their attempt until the sixty seconds allotted to the previous thrower had expired. 

The existence of those timers has always struck me as extraneous. Why would a thrower, once their name is called, want to spend the better part of sixty seconds standing there thinking about throwing? That’s what NFL coaches force the other team’s kicker to do when he’s trying to make an important field goal, right? They call a timeout to give the poor bastard time to ponder and worry and get tight. That strategy is called “icing,” and again, it’s something you do to an opponent to mess them up. Why would an athlete want to ice themselves?

The answer is, they don’t. In a normal comp, each thrower is in and out of the ring in just a few seconds, except when the laser glitches and people like me start wishing they’d let the Amish run all major meets. 

But that night in Eugene, the athletes had no choice but to stand by awkwardly watching the timer tick down to zero before entering the ring, which made for a maddeningly slow competition. By my estimate, it took fifty minutes to complete the first three rounds, twice as long as normal.

Afterwards, I messaged a handful of coaches and athletes to ask if they knew whose idea it was to run the women’s shot that way.  

Kyle Long, coach of Maggie Ewen, said that Maggie told him an official showed up as the comp began and–for reasons unknown–ordered the person running the ring to wait the full minute between attempts. 

“We always prepare for something weird at every meet,” he told me. “But I had no idea why they were making everyone wait so long between throws.”

Fortunately, Maggie smashed a 19.76m opener, which made it easy to stay in relaxo mode the rest of the comp, and ended up producing the most consistently excellent series of her career: 19.87m, 19.54m, 19.80m, 19.48m, and 19.92m.

John Smith, who was there coaching Jalani Davis, thought the slow pace was per request of the TV folks, but like Kyle, he had no hard feelings as Jalani’s fourth-round toss of 18.62m earned her a ticket to Budapest.

Kara Winger, who worked all weekend as a member of the broadcast crew, said afterwards that TV did not dictate the pace of the shot comp, which made sense because…have the TV people ever wanted the throwing events to last longer? Not in my lifetime.

Strangely, though, Kara had heard that an official visited the call room prior to the event and asked the putters if they wanted the full minute between each throw. She also pointed out that most throwers would be so focused on themselves and their cues while sitting in the call room that they probably would not have had enough available brain space to process what the official was actually asking them. 

We may never know the true explanation behind the Great Shot Put Slowdown of 2023, but fortunately all the other throwing events were run at the normal pace. Now, if they would just ditch the damn lasers!…Sorry, honey.

Jalani Davis. Photo courtesy of TrackTown USA.

Leveling Up

After winning the NCAA weight title in March, Jalani Davis headed into the outdoor season looking to do some damage in the hammer and shot put. And for a while, things went as planned. 

She finished second at the SEC Championships in both, with throws of 67.27m and 17.94m, and seemed ready to contend for podium space at the NCAA finals in Austin. 

Then regionals happened.

The University of North Florida, site of the East Regional, had recently redone their cage, and in the remodeled version the hammer ring was placed in front of the discus ring. Because of this, the cage door felt closer than normal for the hammer throwers, which bothered some, Jalani included. She lost her rhythm and maybe her composure, and finished eighteenth with a throw of 60.89m.

Jalani’s disappointment carried over to that night’s shot comp, where her best effort of 16.15m put her nineteenth.

Coach Smith assured Jalani that every thrower has tough days, and the experience would benefit her in the long run. “I told her,” he recalled recently, “the more battle scars you accumulate the better you will be in the end.”

A week later, she bounced back, going 67.00m and 18.64m at the Music City Track Carnival. 

Based on that performance, and on the potential he’d seen Jalani display in training, Smith believed she had a chance to make the squad for Budapest.

But he did not say that to Jalani.

Smith worried that any talk of competing for a spot at Worlds might make it impossible for her to relax and find a flow. “Throwing,” he says, “should be a reaction. If you walk into the ring and try to think through a throw, you’re done. You’ve got to learn to be on autopilot, or you’ll never survive in a high-pressure situation.”

Luckily, Jalani went into USAs with the best U23 hammer and shot put marks in the Western Hemisphere, which made her nearly a lock to qualify for the U23 NACAC team. Smith told her to focus on that and never mentioned the possibility of qualifying for Budapest.

He also tried to put Jalani into autopilot mode during practice by having her throw into a net or over a set of bleachers that blocked her view of where the shot landed.

Blinders come in many forms: the shot ring at Ole Miss, with bleachers in place. Photo courtesy of John Smith.

Smith estimates that Jalani launched eighty percent of her practice attempts over the bleachers in the runup to USAs, including every throw during her final training session before heading to Eugene.

Smith’s plan paid off when, after fouling her first attempt in the competition, Jalani belted an 18.53m second-rounder that put her into third place. In round four, she improved to 18.62m. And then, she started to get suspicious.

“I knew,” she said later, “that to make the U23 team I only had to beat one other U23 girl. But then, after my fourth throw, I asked Coach if I’d make the team for Worlds if I stayed in third or fourth place. He didn’t say anything, so I knew that was a ‘yes.’”

The 18.62m held up for third place, so Jalani will be heading this week to Costa Rica for U23 NACACS before returning home to prepare for Budapest.

Not bad for an athlete who was not recruited out of high school. Jalani got herself on the Ole Miss squad by showing up at a practice one day with her father and convincing Smith to give her a chance. 

“I was mad at walk-ons at the time,” Smith recalls. “I’d just had one who had been a problem. But I liked what Jalani’s father had to say. He’s a military guy, she’s a military kid, and they both impressed me.”

Four years later, Jalani is on the team for Worlds. She has also become the first woman ever to throw eighty feet in the weight and sixty in the shot, though Smith says she is still in the developmental stage. “She’s only been spinning in the shot for three years,” he explained. “And it usually takes four years to click. Right now, she can throw 18 meters from a non-reverse, but she’s still getting comfortable with reversing. Year four is when Jessica Ramsey broke through to 20 meters. So, we’ll see.”

In the end, though, the hammer might be her best event. 

Jalani’s current PB is 69.53m, but according to Smith, she is poised for a breakthrough there as well. 

This season, after three-and-a-half years of training the hammer, Jalani threw the 3-kilo implement 82 meters in practice. Smith has had other athletes reach that distance with the 3k, including 2019 World Champion DeAnna Price, 2017 US Champion and two-time Olympian Gwen Berry, and 2013 World Championships finalist Jeneva Stevens, but none did it as early in their career. 

Will Jalani some day follow DeAnna’s path to a World Championships podium? Maybe, but that’s something to think about at a later date. For the rest of this summer, she’ll be on autopilot mode.

Daniel Ståhl in London back in 2017 showing off his first World Championships medal. Photo courtesy of Arwid Koskinen.

Big Man Update

Daniel Ståhl is having a hell of a season with four meets over 70 meters so far, including a best of 71.45m. After a tough 2022 campaign where he finished out of the medals at Worlds and Europeans, what more could you ask?

“I’d like,” Daniel’s former coach Vésteinn Hafsteinsson told me via a Zoom call last week, “to see him throw far outside of Sweden and Finland, which are his favorite places to compete, and to see him beat Kristjan at least one more time before Worlds.”

That would be defending World champ Kristjan Čeh, whose 71.86m toss at the Heino Lipp Memorial gave Daniel the honor of owning the farthest second-place throw (the aforementioned 71.45m) in history. 

Daniel had tagged Kristjan with his only loss of the season three days earlier at the Paavo Nurmi Games, but outside of that comp the big Slovenian had been untouchable. 

Then came last weekend’s Gyulai István Memorial in Hungary, where Daniel defeated all three 2022 Worlds medalists–Kristjan, Mykolas Alekna, and Andrius Gudžius–while taking the win with a throw of 68.98m. 

Right now, Daniel is flourishing under his new coach, Staffan Jönsson, and the men’s discus final in Budapest should be hellacious.

We hope to have Vésteinn’s book about his years with Daniel available later this summer. Maybe just in time to celebrate another World Championships medal.

2023 Toyota USATF Outdoor Championships Preview: Adelaide Aquilla

Adelaide on tour with her fellow pros. Photo courtesy of Adelaide’s Instagram page.

There is plenty of evidence to suggest that Adelaide Aquilla is one of the world’s best shot putters. The 19.64m PB, which is an NCAA record. The four NCAA titles. The third-place finish at the 2021 Olympic Trials. The second-place finish at the 2022 USATF Championships. The recent 19.17m toss at the Bislett Games to score her first Diamond League points in her first year as a pro.

That would be enough to convince just about anyone, except maybe Adelaide herself, who still sometimes grapples with “walk-on imposter syndrome.” 

She was, in fact, a walk-on at Ohio State University coming out of high school, but quickly proved she belonged in DI athletics by making it to the 2019 NCAA finals in Austin, Texas, as a sophomore. She threw a PB 16.29m there to finish twelfth, the first of many occasions that the NCAA Championships would bring out her best.

The following February, Adelaide threw another PB, this time 17.82m, to win her first Big 10 indoor title just before the world closed up shop. When the world opened up again a year later, she earned her second Big 10 indoor title, and first NCAA indoor crown, the latter by tossing a PB of 18.12m. 

She smashed a 19.12m PB to take the 2021 Big 10 outdoor meet, and followed that up with a win at the NCAA Outdoor Championships and, shockingly, that third-place finish at the Trials which put her on the Olympic team at the age of twenty-two. 

Adelaide had a great time hanging out at the training center the US established in Tokyo to keep the athletes Covid-free during the Games, and tried to approach the qualification round with the confidence she’d shown at the Trials, but after throwing 18.95m in Eugene to make the team, she topped out at 17.68m and did not advance to the final.

Adelaide had a remarkable NCAA career, including two indoor titles. Photo courtesy of the Ohio State track site.

That resurrected some of the old doubts about whether or not she really belonged at the top level of the sport. “There was,” she recalls, “a big adjustment period coming back from the  Olympics. I wasn’t happy with my performance, and I had to realign how I looked at myself and to realize I performed well at a bunch of high level meets in 2021, so one bad meet–even if it was the Olympic Games–did not define me.”

Adelaide also had to adjust to working with a new coach, as Ashley Kovacs moved on to Vanderbilt and was replaced by Travis Coleman.

There was a period of adjustment as she and Coleman got to know each other, and at the same time Adelaide was learning to deal with the expectations she perceived others had for her now that she was an Olympian.

That proved to be not so easy, and after opening the indoor season with two meets over 19 meters and taking her third consecutive Big 10 Indoor title, Adelaide struggled to a best of 17.95m at the NCAA Indoor Championships, which consigned her to second place. 

Her slump continued outdoors, and she did not reach 19 meters during March or April. 

Then, one day at practice, she had an epiphany. “One of the guys on the team was throwing a light ball and talking trash to me, as you do in practice,” she recalls. “And he said ‘I bet I can throw this thing farther than you can throw your four-kilo shot.’ This was like twenty minutes after I was done throwing for the day, but I put on my shoes and just got in the ring and beat him. And I was like, this is what’s missing! I need to have fun and be confident in meets just like I was that day in practice. It was a big mindset shift for me.”

Her new attitude paid off big at the NCAAs as she opened with that 19.64m PB and NCAA record. Two weeks later, she reached 19.45m to take second at the USATF Championships and qualify for Worlds.

Adelaide struggled in qualifying there as she had at the Olympics, but enjoyed the experience and looked forward to the 2023 indoor campaign, which would end her college eligibility.

Adelaide with Travis Coleman and Ohio State head coach Rosalind Joseph. Photo courtesy of the Ohio State track site.

She and Coleman had developed an excellent working relationship by then, and preparations for her final tour as a Buckeye were going well, until one day she called in an order to a Starbucks near her house. 

“I went down there to get my coffee,” she recalls, “but I was walking downhill and it was icy. All of a sudden, I was sliding down the hill, and about to fall against a car–a Porsche, actually–so to avoid it, I fell backwards and hyperextended my ankle. That was not surprising for me. I’m very athletic in the ring, but that’s where it ends.”

Adelaide was not allowed to throw or lift for a month, and when she made her season’s debut at the indoor Big 10 meet, she fouled every attempt.

Next came the NCAA Indoor Championships, and her first four attempts there went 15.92m, 17.26m, 17.81m, and 17.17m. Her fifth throw was a foul.

“My throws at the Big 10 meet were out of the right sector,” she explained. “So at NCAAs I was worrying about getting them in instead of relaxing and having fun. Then, on my last attempt, I realized this was my last throw ever as an NCAA athlete, and somehow, I relaxed.”

The result was a 19.28m bomb for the win.

But that was it for college, and her experience this season as a pro has reminded Adelaide of when she was a freshman. 

“I had to find my place in the NCAA, and I eventually proved that I belonged. Now, I have to do it again. All the girls on the tour have been welcoming to me, offering advice and encouragement, and that gives me a lot of hope. But I have to keep reminding myself that these girls have been pros for five or six years, and this is my first season. I’m just trying to prove to myself that I belong.”

The hardest part of life on the circuit?

Traveling alone and not having Coleman at meets to consult between throws. 

That’s one reason Adelaide says she is excited about Saturday’s competition. 

“It will be the first time outdoors that my coach will be there,” she says. “So at least if I think something is wrong, I have a second set of eyes to help me. And I have a level of comfortableness throwing at Hayward. I’ve had a lot of success there, and I know exactly what the ring feels like, so it’s easy for me when I do my visualization to imagine making a perfect throw.”

A perfect throw might not be in the offing, but competing at the USATF Championships has brought out the best in Adelaide Aquilla for the past two years. Will she capture the magic again on Saturday?

The women’s shot final begins at 6:15 pm Pacific time. Tune in and find out.

2023 Toyota USATF Outdoor Championships Preview: Maggie Ewen

Maggie Ewen celebrating her victory and world-leading throw at the LA Grand Prix meet in May. Photo courtesy of USATF.

Look up “huge breakthrough” in any dictionary worth its salt and you’ll find a link to the video of shot putter Maggie Ewen launching a 20.45m rocket earlier this year at the LA Grand Prix

She added another 20-meter toss that day, and in her next four comps went 19.61m, 19.26m, 19.52m, and 19.68m.

Keep in mind that her previous outdoor PB was 19.47m.

According to her coach, Kyle Long, the impetus for this Great Leap Forward can be traced back to the 2021 Olympic Trials where Maggie threw 18.92m and missed making the squad by three centimeters. During that comp, she had a front row seat as first Raven Saunders then Jessica Ramsey produced historic distances for female rotational putters. Saunders’ 19.96m blast briefly put her second all-time behind Jill Camarena-Williams on the list of rotational women. A few minutes later, Ramsey went 20.12m to become the only female spinner besides Camarena-Williams to surpass 20 meters at that point.

Camarena-Williams threw her 20.18m PB in 2011, and as is often the case with visionaries (Did you know Ben Franklin invented swim fins in 1717 at the age of 11?), the world was not quite ready to follow her lead. The glide technique continued to predominate among women for another decade, until the success of Saunders and Ramsey heralded a major shift in the event.

In 2022, Chase Ealey (20.51m), Jiayuan Song (20.38m), Sarah Mitton (20.33m), and Jessica Schilder (20.24m) all breached the 20-meter barrier using the rotational technique. Each of those ladies also finished ahead of Maggie at the 2022 Worlds, as did two more up-and-coming spinners, Jessica Woodard and Maddie-Lee Wesche.

Maggie too had always been a rotational putter, and a successful one at that. She won the 2018 NCAA title in the shot while competing for Arizona State, and that same year raised the NCAA record to 19.46m. 

After graduating that spring, Maggie, according to Coach Long, “seemed to be in a great place. She chipped away and got points at Diamond League meets. She finished fourth at the World Championships in 2019 (with a throw of 18.93m). But when Ramsey threw 20.12m at the Trials, and then Chase threw 20.49m at Worlds last year, it was a reality check. The women’s shot put world had moved forward, and Maggie could either move forward as well or be left behind.”

Kyle noticed when they began training for the 2023 season that Maggie was on a mission. “She has always wanted to do her best,” he says. “But now, she’s focused on making sure her best puts her up there with the world’s best.”

So far in 2023, mission accomplished. Maggie’s 20.45m PB has her ranked number one in the world. 

Going into Saturday’s USATF women’s shot comp, Maggie says she is in a good place. 

“After the season ended in 2022,” she said in a recent appearance on the Throw Big Throw Far Podcast, “we made some changes to my strength training, and Kyle got the job as throws coach at the university of South Dakota, so we moved to Vermillion. The move helped give me a fresh start in a new place, and now I’m in a much better place in my life and my mindset…a place where I have the ability to thrive and accomplish the things I want to accomplish.”

First on that list of accomplishments will be securing a spot on the squad for Budapest.

Chase has a bye this year after winning the 2022 Worlds, so three spots will be up for grabs with Maggie, Woodard, and Adelaide Aquilla as the favorites.

The comp will begin at 6:15 pm Pacific time.

2023 Toyota USATF Outdoor Championships Preview: Chase Ealey

Chase Ealey prepares to drop the hammer at the 2022 Worlds in Eugene. Photo courtesy of TrackTown USA.

Chase Ealey kicked a lot of butt last year.

After blasting a 20.21m PB to take second at Indoor Worlds, she was literally unbeatable outside where she opened with 18.74m in Great Britain, 19.51m in Qatar, 19.76m in Germany, and 19.98m in the Netherlands–all wins. Those comps were just a prelude, though, to an historic summer during which she ripped off a run of seven consecutive 20-meter performances, including a 20.49m gold-medal-winning toss in Eugene to earn her first World title.

Her best mark from last summer, a PB of 20.51m at the 2022 USATF Championships, stands as the farthest throw ever by a female shot putter using the rotational technique. 

It was a stunning turnaround after a long bout with long Covid wrecked Chase’s 2021 season and had people doubting if she’d ever reach the potential she’d flashed while winning her first USATF title in 2019. The story of her climb back to the top of the sport is a good one (you can read about it here), and her success in 2022 got Chase and her coach Paul Wilson looking for larger hills to summit.

Defending her title at the 2023 Worlds and fighting for an Olympic gold medal in 2024 loomed as the next challenges on the horizon, but Chase and Coach Wilson also began speaking openly of conquering the Everest of women’s shot putting–Natalya Lisovskaya’s 22.63m World Record. 

That mark has stood since 1987, and modern anti-doping protocols seemed to have rendered it untouchable, but speaking last fall, Wilson said that advances in the rotational technique have put the record in play for athletes like Chase. “The rotational technique will finally give a clean athlete the chance to break the record” he opined. “It has already made twenty meters like nineteen meters used to be for the women. With an athlete as talented as Chase who has only been rotating for a few years, we don’t know what her boundaries will be, but I’d say the sky’s the limit.” 

So far in 2023, though, Chase’s path up the mountain has been neither straight nor easy.

Just before the start of the indoor season, she pinched some rib cartilage on the left side of her torso, which made throwing painful. That led to results of 18.61m and 17.90m in her first two meets, though she then popped off a 20.03m toss at the Millrose Games, a testament to her toughness and formidable physical gifts.

Paul says he wanted to pull Chase from those early indoor meets but she insisted on honoring her obligations. “She feels like she will be letting people down if she drops out of a comp,” he explained. “And she does not like letting people down.”

Over time, the injury healed, and Chase was throwing pain free by April. 

She has yet to find her groove outdoors, though, at least in part because of technical adjustments she and Paul have made with an eye on Budapest, Paris, and Lisovskaya.

Photo courtesy of TrackTown USA.

Paul says that after watching Ryan Crouser throw at the Millrose Games, Chase wanted to experiment with using her left arm the way Crouser does in order to create a more “wrapped” or coiled position at the front of the ring. This could potentially add power and distance to her throws, but technical changes require patience–it can take time before they translate to farther distances.

“A lot of it,” says Wilson, “is that she has to be confident with her technique during competitions. She has to commit to it. It’s still not second nature to her, so her timing is off and she’s been skying throws near twenty meters. But once she gets everything connected and gets the delivery going forwards, she’ll be untouchable again.”

(Note: Paul was not kidding about Chase “skying” throws near 20 meters. I was at the LA Grand Prix, and her 19.98m there was a moonshot.) 

Because of Chase’s hectic travel schedule, Wilson estimates they’ve only had half a dozen “proper technical sessions” together the entire summer. But after USAs, she’ll head back to their home base in Great Britain for five solid weeks of preparation in advance of Worlds. 

“The way her season has gone so far with only one throw over twenty meters outdoors,” he says, “has probably given her competitors a false sense of security.  But once she starts reaping the rewards of the things we’re working on now, she’ll be tough to beat.”

As defending champion, Chase has a bye into the 2023 Worlds, but you can bet she’ll be fired up to defend her US title this Saturday in Eugene.

Will that be the day when her technical adjustments click and she moves a little higher up the side of Mt. Lisovskaya?

Tune in at 6:15 pm Pacific and find out!

Will Chase create another happy Hayward Field moment on Saturday? I wouldn’t bet against her. Photo courtesy of TrackTown USA.

Coach Paolo Dal Soglio to Present at the 2022 European Shot Put Conference

I always remembered Paolo Dal Soglio as the guy who crashed the party in the men’s shot put at the 1996 Olympic Games. When I turned on my television that July evening, I was expecting to see an epic battle between European gliders and American spinners, but was greeted instead by the sight of Paolo (an Italian spinner!) having the time of his life. He held the lead until round five, and though he ended up missing the podium by a centimeter, he stole the show with his high-pitched screams and unabashed joy at performing on the big stage.

Paulo, in his athletic prime.

Fast forward to the summer of 2021, and I found myself greatly entertained by the sight of another Italian spinner having the time of his life at an Olympic Games. At first, I thought there’d been a mix up and the officials had accidentally put a decathlete in the men’s shot final there in Tokyo, but it turned out that this guy Zane Weir could really throw! He ended up launching a PB of 21.41m to take fifth, and has since raised that PB to 21.99m.

Zane Weir, an inspiration for skinny people everywhere.

It also turns out that Paolo is Zane’s coach, and they will present together at the upcoming 2022 European Shot Put Conference to be held October 28th-30th in Tallinn, Estonia.

I had the pleasure of speaking with Paolo recently as we taped an episode of the Throw Big Throw Far Podcast hosted by my friend Joe Frontier, and I was impressed with his thoughtful approach to coaching the rotational shot.

Like most putters from his era, Paolo started out as a glider. His coach for his entire career was a man named Aldo Pedron, and at some point Paolo and Aldo sought advice from the German coach Peter Tschiene, who suggested trying the rotational technique.

“We trained one month with the spin,” Paolo recalls, “and Peter said if I throw within 50 centimeters of my glide PB, we would change.”

He did, and they did.

This was 1991, in the Dark Ages before YouTube, and there was not a lot of information available on how to make the glide-to-spin conversion, so Aldo, Peter, and Paolo set about finding their own way.

Paolo says that they tried many options and experimented with different approaches to each phase of the throw, including his setup at the back. “We tried starting with a very deep bend in the knees,” he says, “and also standing straight up. The hardest thing was changing where I held the shot on my neck. That took a long time to get right.”

A big breakthrough came one day when Paolo was training in a cramped indoor space and launching many throws out of the sector. Those throws were “destroying things,” so Peter suggested that Paolo move to his right on his setup.

Immediately, that adjustment felt “amazing.”

“I felt like I had a bigger circle,” he recalls. “I could get my lower body ahead and build torsion.”

Along with Zane, Paolo also coaches Leonardo Fabbri (21.99m PB) and both those gents use the offset setup. That does not mean, however, that Paolo tries to make them copy his technique, as many people assumed he would when he began coaching.

“People were worried. They said, ‘Paolo has a big kick. Not good!'”

But Paolo believes that each athlete has to find their own way to make the shot go far. One key, he says, is creating torsion.

“You have two different engines,” he explains, “the upper body and the lower body. They work separately for most of the throw then at the end together.”

He also emphasized the need for trust between an athlete and coach, and the importance of determination, especially once an athlete reaches a level where improvement comes slowly.

“When you start out,” he says, “every day is like Christmas. But after that, are you willing to work keep working? Are you able mentally to train one year for a little bit of improvement?”

At the upcoming conference, Paolo and Zane will demonstrate the approach they used to help Zane improve from an anonymous skinny dude with a 19.09m PB into one of the world’s top putters.

World champion Chase Ealey and her coach, Paul Wilson will also present, as will Paulo Reis, coach of Auriol Dongmo.

It should be a fantastic weekend! You’ll find registration info here.

Coach Paul Wilson to present at the 2022 European Shot Put Conference

Paul Wilson, coach of 2022 World Champion Chase Ealey and eight-time British Champion Scott Lincoln will be one of the main presenters at the upcoming European Shot Put Conference to be held on 28-30 October in Tallinn, Estonia.

The conference has been put together by  Hans Üürike of Global Throwing, in cooperation with European Athletics.

The format will include lectures, practical demonstrations, discussions and, according to Hans, lots of socializing.

He expects that there will be at least 100 coaches in attendance, and says that when that many shot put coaches get together, “the throwing talk never stops. I know from our previous conferences, that these coaches love having dinner together and going to the bar together and asking advice from each other. This is one of the best things about attending a conference in person–the relationships that people develop make the community stronger.”

Paul is also a big believer in collaboration among coaches. He says he learned a lot from Don Babbitt earlier in his career, and still keeps in touch with him. He has also consulted with people like Dylan Armstrong, Dale Stevenson and René Sack.

“I listen to what people have to say, and sometimes I think ‘That might work for your athlete but it might not work for my athlete,’ but there’s often something you can borrow. And a lot of times, it comes from just having a chat with other coaches, just talking generally and then you come away with some things you can use.”

Paul has been coaching the throws in Great Britain for years, but came to international prominence after engineering the revival of Chase Ealey’s career this past season.

It is a remarkable story, which I wrote about in detail here, but the bottom line is that after meeting strictly by chance last January, Chase and Paul developed a coach/athlete partnership that led seven months later to her first World title.

Paul has a lot to share regarding rotational technique and his philosophy of coaching, and Chase–who is also extremely articulate when it comes to talking about technique–will be there as well, so attendees can look forward to hearing both sides of this amazing success story.

Stay tuned for more info regarding other presenters at this year’s European Shot Conference. In the meantime, check out their website for info regarding registration.

More from the Weltklasse Zurich

Kara WINGER of the United States competes in the womens Javelin Throw during the Iaaf Diamond League meeting (Weltklasse Zuerich) at the Letzigrund Stadium in Zurich, Thursday, September 8, 2022. (Weltklasse Zuerich/Urs Jaudas)

Domestic Bliss, Weaponized

In the documentary film The Last Waltz, Robbie Robertson, lead singer of the band “The Band,” describes touring as, “a goddamned impossible way of life.” The constant travel. The weird hours. The unfamiliar food. The ache of loneliness that wells up when the arena goes silent.

Professional track athletes know that scene. To make a living in the sport, they have to ply the European circuit for much of the summer while also managing trips to far-flung locales like Doha and Rabat.

And while traveling for a living might sound glamorous to those of us who make the same commute to the same office every day, think of this: When it goes badly at work, we still get to go home at the end of the day and sit on the couch with our spouse and share a glass of wine and watch a few episodes of “Friends” or “Shark Tank” and feel their warmth next to us all night before we have to get up and face the world again. But that’s not the way it works on the road. Not usually.

Russ Winger, formerly a world class shot and discus thrower and currently the coach and husband of Kara Winger, says that “when things are not going well in Europe, it’s the worst. You’re away from home, not competing well, not getting anything good out of the sport. That makes a lot of athletes decide they don’t want to continue.”

Kara experienced those feelings during the summer of 2021, when she struggled to find her rhythm while competing overseas. Looking ahead to 2022, which she had announced would be her final season, Kara realized that her last lap around the circuit would be much more enjoyable if Russ came with her. So, she asked him to be her coach.

It’s easy to imagine an arrangement like that going badly. Most of us do not like getting advice from our spouse on mundane matters such as driving directions or how best to fold a t-shirt, let alone having them remind us day after day to keep our javelin back.

But Russ and Kara made it work.

“I’ve loved being her coach,” he said recently. “It’s been fun because we know each other very well. I’ve seen her at her best and worst, and she has seen me at my best and worst, and that’s a perspective you can’t get from other folks.”

Bottom line, having Russ with her every day, especially on trips overseas, made Kara happy, and according to her longtime friend and strength coach Jamie Meyers, Kara “always does well when she’s happy.”

Her performance this summer would seem to support that assertion. In June, she won her ninth national title with a throw of 64.26m. A month later, she took her first-ever World Championships medal with a sixth-round toss of 64.05m. Two weeks after that, she won the Diamond League meeting in Brussels. The 68.11m she threw there was her first PB in twelve years. It was also the best throw in the world this year and is now the American record. She then finished her season by winning the Diamond League title for the first time.

As that meet in a sold-out Letzigrund Stadium concluded, the event winners were feted with a parade and fireworks and a mini-concert. After that, she made her way through the media gauntlet with her usual aplomb, providing thoughtful answers to mundane questions, making sure every reporter got what they needed. When there were no more queries, she looked around and smiled. “And now,” she announced, “I get to see Russ!”

A Long Time Coming

Had Joe Kovacs walked away from the sport during the winter of 2019, as it looked like he might, he’d have retired with the kind of resumé (a World Championship gold and silver, an Olympic silver, a 22.57m PB) that would have placed him among the top ten putters of all time. Not bad for a guy who finished fourth at the NCAA Championships in 2012, his senior year at Penn State, and wasn’t even sure he wanted to try competing as a professional. When I spoke with him after that NCAA final, his main goal in athletics seemed to be surpassing 500 pounds in the bench press. And they say shot putters are meatheads.

But later that summer, Joe hit a big PB–21.08m–at the Olympic Trials, which got him within twenty centimeters of making the team, which got him an invite to live and train in Chula Vista under the guidance of Art Venegas, which put him on the path to building a remarkable career.

Joe KOVACS of the United States competes in the Shot Put Men event during the Weltklasse Zuerich, Diamond League meeting at the Sechselaeutenplatz on Wednesday, September 7, 2022 in Zurich, Switzerland. (Weltklasse Zuerich/Urs Bucher)

He established himself as the best shot putter on the planet in 2015 by blasting a PB of 22.56m in July and then winning the World Championships later that summer in Beijing. And based on some titanic warmup throws (including a reputed 24-meter bomb at Triton in 2014) it looked like Joe might be on the way to taking down Randy Barnes’ world record of 23.12m and making a case for himself as the best putter of all time.

Then, Ryan Crouser happened.

Many people were surprised when Crouser, after flying under the radar all winter and spring, blasted 22.11m to win the Olympic Trials in 2016, but Joe and Art were not surprised. Ryan had been training in Chula Vista prior to the Trials, so they’d gotten a closeup view of his capabilities.

Joe threw 21.78m in Rio, a distance that would have won five of the previous six Games, but when Crouser bombed an Olympic record 22.52m for the gold, it was clear that a new era had dawned in the men’s shot.

Joe upped his PB to 22.57m the following year, and finished ahead of Crouser while taking silver at the London Worlds, but it still seemed likely that at some point Crouser would use his 6’7″ frame and silky smooth rhythm to dominate the event.

To counter that looming threat, Art and Joe began experimenting with technical modifications, which they hoped might turn Joe’s more compact build into an advantage. My understanding is that Joe began setting up in the ring much like the discus thrower you can see in this video. He and Art believed that this new starting position would give him a longer path of acceleration on the ball, which would ultimately translate to farther throws. It was also an approach that a larger thrower like Crouser probably could not employ within the confines of a shot put ring, so if Joe could make it work it would give him a leg up on his main rival.

Ideally, a thrower attempting a major technical change would take a year away from competition to perfect their new style, but that’s hard to do when you make your living as a shot putter, so Joe spent 2018 working on his new approach in practice while using his “old” technique in meets. Understandably, he struggled. He also got injured.

The following winter, newly married to the former Ashley Muffet and living in Columbus, Ohio, where Ashley worked as the throws coach at Ohio State, Joe found himself at a crossroads. He made occasional trips to California to train with Art, but the transition to the new technique did not seem to be working. Meanwhile, he had lost his feel for his “old” style of throwing and was struggling to hit 20 meters. At the same time, being married to Ashley made him realize that he could have a full and happy life outside of the ring, and he began to wonder if he should retire.

Luckily for the sport, Joe decided to stick with it for the 2019 season. Ashley took over as his coach and guided him to a World title in Doha in what will long be remembered as the greatest shot competition ever. It was a remarkable end to a remarkable season, which I wrote about in detail here.

It turns out that Joe and Art were correct in their assessment of Crouser’s potential. He broke the world record in 2021 with a toss of 23.37m, and has surpassed the 23-meter mark in six different comps. But with Ashley’s guidance, Joe has kept pace, taking silver at the Tokyo Games and at this summer’s Worlds with throws of 22.65m and 22.89m respectively.

After Worlds in July, Joe put together a sensational string of performances in Europe including 22.89m at the Gyulai István Memorial in Hungary, 22.65m at the Athletissima in Lausanne, and 22.61m at the Memorial Van Damme in Brussels.

And then, at the Diamond League final in Zurich, he finally breached the 23-meter line with a second-round blast of 23.23m, which put him ahead of Barnes on the all-time list. (You can view Joe’s post-meet comments here.)

Joe and Ashley moved to Nashville two years ago after she accepted a position at Vanderbilt, and they are expecting twins this fall. Will wrangling two babies prove more challenging than keeping up with Crouser? Likely.

But this golden Kovacs v. Crouser era is not going to end just yet. Joe believes that at 33, he is young enough to extend his new PB, and Crouser–who put 22.74m in Zurich despite having been sick for a month when a case of Covid morphed into a sinus infection–is not going anywhere.

However things play out, those gents now occupy the top two spots on the all-time performance list. As they should.