With eleven career medals in international championships, Gerd Kanter had lots of reasons to celebrate.
One of history’s great discus throwers, Gerd Kanter was also a successful coach, guiding Kristjan Čeh to World Championship gold in ’22 and silver in ’23. Gerd has agreed to analyze his own technique, step by step, for readers of McThrows.
The right foot pickup is the point where the throw can be wrecked if you are not on balance.
You must feel control of the entire system as the right foot leaves the ground. The upper body must remain slow and passive, and the left hip must remain strong with no breaking!
First, let’s review how we get to this point in the throw.
As you see in the photo above, I tried to stay upright while swinging the discus behind me. My weight did not shift during this phase of the throw, and my left foot maintained a solid connection with the ground.
In Part 2 of this series, I emphasized the need to be strong with both hips when beginning the throw.
Of course, the weight must shift to the left in the position you see above, but we do not want the right knee and hip to turn as the left foot and leg open.
A cue that I used was to keep the right heel on the ground as long as possible as the left foot and knee turned so that when it did finally come off, the trajectory of the right leg would be out and around the left side as you see in the photos below…
At this point, I am on balance and in good shape to achieve a wide right leg sweep and to push off my left knee as I start to sprint through the ring.
Next time, I will explain the sprint to the middle!
Sign up for the McThrows newsletter to receive emailed notices about future articles by Gerd and other McThrows contributors. In the meantime, check out his book, Gerd Kanter: Five Championship Moments to learn more about Gerd’s fantastic career.
With eleven career medals in international championships, Gerd Kanter had lots of reasons to celebrate.
One of history’s great discus throwers, Gerd Kanter was also a hell of a coach, guiding Kristjan Čeh to World Championship gold in ’22 and silver in ’23. Once a month, he will analyze a different phase of his technique for readers of McThrows.
As I explained earlier, it was very important for me to stay balanced and level during my windup, with no shifting of my weight and no leaning forward or backward. Now, in this photo, I am trying to maintain that balance and posture as I begin the throw.
One cue I used was to keep my right heel on the ground as long as possible.
That way, I could keep both of my hips loaded as I began turning to the left to set up for the sprint across the ring. Early in my career, I had a tendency to shift my weight too much to the left during this moment, which caused my left hip to “break” or collapse as I began my right leg sweep. The breaking of the left hip made it impossible to achieve a balanced entry, so we worked hard to correct it. Keeping both hips strong and loaded as long as possible allowed the right side of my body to travel out and around my left side on balance, as you will see in the upcoming frames.
Another important cue for me at this point in the throw was to keep my left arm calm and passive. As you can see, my left foot and leg are ahead of my left arm as I begin to open my left side. When I started out, I often used my left arm aggressively to try to create momentum at this phase of the throw, which aggravated my tendency to “break” my left hip.
We spent a lot of time working on this part of the throw, because if you give up your balance here, it is game over. You cannot regain it and the throw will be wasted.
Next month, Gerd will examine the next step to setting up a successful entry. In the meantime, check out his book, Gerd Kanter: Five Championship Moments to learn more about his fantastic career.
No male discus thrower has won more international championship medals than the eleven Gerd collected during his long and storied career. Now, for readers of McThrows, Gerd has agreed to share memories, opinions, and observations on the sport in a monthly feature called Discus Days. In this month’s edition, Gerd talks about Daniel Ståhl’s remarkable victory at the World Championships in Tokyo,
Daniel Ståhl’s winning throw of 70.47m in Tokyo was, if you take the circumstances, the all time best throw in discus history.
If he made that throw at a place like Ramona, it might have been 77 or 78 meters. And Daniel did it under the pressure of trying to win a World Championships.
This performance reminds me of what Al Oerter did in the 1968 Olympic Games when Jay Silvester—who set the World Record of 68.40m earlier in the season—probably should have won. But it rained that night in Mexico City, and Silvester only threw 61.78m, while Al Oerter took the gold with a PB of 64.78m.
Al Oerter was always prepared for any conditions, and he probably knew when it was raining for the final that it gave him his chance to win.
It was the same with Daniel in Tokyo. You saw how he acted during the competition. Daniel looked happy and comfortable, and that was half the battle.
Daniel and I both learned the discus from Vésteinn Hafsteinsson, who was always telling us we had to be ready no matter what.
During his own career, Vésteinn beat Lars Riedel one time, and it was because Vésteinn was ready to throw in the rain and Lars wasn’t. Vésteinn used to have a shoemaker who would take the soles off a pair of throwing shoes and replace them with a material that gave a firmer grip, so he was able to keep his balance while Lars fell on his ass.
I don’t know what shoes Daniel used in Tokyo, but for sure he was prepared, and that is how it is supposed to be when you are a professional. I liked to have a couple of different types of rain shoes, one with the hard plastic plate removed and soles made out of stickier material. In another pair, I would leave the hard plate in but still have the soles changed to the grippier rubber. In a dry ring, you would not be able to spin in those shoes, but in the rain they gave you a lot of traction.
When we were preparing for the 2005 World Championships in Helsinki, we knew the ring there could be slippery if it rained, so I had some fresh shoes prepared. It turned out that the weather was fine, and I got silver by throwing 68.57m in my normal Nikes. But the shoemaker I used spoke to the press and bragged that his special shoes were the reason I took a medal. The people from Nike did not like that. A few days later I received a package from the Nike dealer in Estonia. It was a pair of Nikes in a glass box with a note that said, “Maybe there was some help from us, also?”
While it is the responsibility of the athlete to always be prepared, I do think that World Athletics should do a better job of requiring a standard throwing surface for championship events. It is quite possible to make a surface that is fast in dry weather—the way many throwers prefer it—but that also has some traction in the rain. World Athletics should develop specifications for that kind of surface and inspect the facilities before championships to be sure they meet the requirements. That would help prevent competitions like the shot put at last year’s Paris Olympics and the men’s discus in Tokyo where safety became a big issue.
In the meantime though, congratulations to Daniel, Mykolas Alekna, and Alex Rose for reaching the podium under very difficult conditions.
We’ll publish another piece by Gerd next month. In the meantime, check out his book, Gerd Kanter: Five Championship Moments to learn more about his fantastic career.
With eleven career medals in international championships, Gerd Kanter had lots of reasons to celebrate.
One of history’s great discus throwers, Gerd Kanter was also a hell of a coach, guiding Kristjan Čeh to World Championship gold in ’22 and silver in ’23. Once a month, he will analyze a different phase of his technique for readers of McThrows.
The Windup
I started working with Vésteinn Hafsteinsson not long after the 2000 Olympics where the three medalists—Virgilijus, Lars Riedel, and Franz Kruger—were all taller than me with longer wingspans. In order to compete with guys like that, we experimented with ways to maximize my path of acceleration. A German discus thrower from the 1960’s and 1970’s named Hein-Direck Neu had done this by setting up with his right foot well back from the ring during his windup.
For a while, we tried a similar starting position with my right foot set back maybe 40 centimeters, and biomechanical analysis showed that it helped me to create more power and speed on the implement. But it was hard for me to consistently achieve a balanced entry from this position, so we returned my feet to a normal starting position and settled for using a long windup in the style of Mac Wilkins.
With this windup, I improved my PB by ten meters between 2000 and 2004. Unfortunately, I was rarely able to produce a big throw under the pressure of a major competition such as the World Championships or Olympic Games. After I failed to advance beyond qualification at the 2004 Olympics, we knew that if I was ever going to compete for a medal I had to solidify my technique so that I could throw at least 65 meters under any circumstance.
The biggest flaw that was holding me back was my tendency to “break” my left hip as I began my right leg sweep.
In order to stay on balance when the right foot leaves the ground, the left hip must remain strong. You’ll see how this works as we progress through the throw over time.
The first and most important step in correcting my tendency to “break” my left hip was adjusting my windup so that I would stay perfectly on balance at the start of the throw. Rather than shifting my weight to my right leg and swinging the discus back as far as possible as Mac Wilkins had done, I would simply sit down into a half squat with my upper body erect and put the discus directly behind me as you see in the picture. We also limited the movement of my left foot during my swing. As you can also see from the illustration, my left foot and right arm are at the same angle at the end of my swing and the left heel is fairly low to the ground. This made it much easier to stay on balance and transition smoothly into the throw.
Another advantage to this shorter windup was that it helped me to feel relaxed and coiled like a loaded spring. When I put the disc back and felt tension in the adductor muscles of both legs, I knew I was ready to begin the throw.
Did this windup limit my path of acceleration a bit? Yes, but for me it was worth the tradeoff.
Going for the longest path of acceleration made it difficult for me to consistently enter the throw on balance, and once you lose your balance at the start of a throw it is almost impossible to regain it. There is simply no time. The throw plays out too quickly.
And it turned out I did not need to achieve the maximum path of acceleration in order to throw far. I was fast and explosive enough so that I could generate plenty of power with a short windup–as long as I maintained my balance.
Next month, Gerd will examine his approach to setting up a successful entry. In the meantime, check out his book, Gerd Kanter: Five Championship Moments to learn more about his fantastic career.
The 2026 A-Z Clinic, presented by Throw Big Throw Far Chicago will take place at Wheaton North High School in the suburbs of Chicago on Sunday, January 25th from 9am to 1pm. Small group instruction will be offered in discus and shot put technique.
The A-Z is a great opportunity for athletes to receive instruction from top area coaches in a small group, learn-by-doing environment.
Coaches are also encouraged to sign up and attend to observe and film their athletes as they go through drills and take throws with indoor shots and discus training balls.
The cost of the clinic is $75 for those paying in advance, $100 at the door. Follow the QR code on the photo below to register.
If you enjoy roller coasters, I encourage you to check out Laulauga Tausaga’s career stats on her World Athletics profile page. Let’s start with 2019 when she made a huge breakthrough by winning the NCAA title, a huger breakthrough by making the US team for the Doha Worlds, a monumental breakthrough by throwing a 63.94m PB in qualifying there…and then fouled all three throws in the final. In 2021, she finished second at the NCAA…but did not record a mark at the Olympic Trials. In 2022, she threw 64.49m at the US Championships to finish second and qualify for the Worlds in Eugene where she once again advanced to the final…only to go 56.47m, 55.93m, foul, and finish twelfth. The following year, she made the final at the Worlds in Budapest…then threw a 4-meter PB and won the damn thing! Last season, after opening with a solid 65.38m in April, she struggled most of the summer and had another disastrous Olympic Trials where, as in 2021, she did not record a mark.
Last weekend, Lagi began her 2025 campaign with a solid 62.85m for the win at the Florida relays. This week, she will appear for the first time at the Throw Town World Invitational in Ramona, Oklahoma, where Joe Frontier and I will serve as commentators on a broadcast produced by the fine folks at Throws University. In this interview, she reflects back on a difficult 2024 season and expresses optimism about finally finding the consistency she has worked so hard to achieve.
It had to be tough on you to struggle last year after having such an epic 2023 season.
After 2023, a lot of people were looking for me to do something amazing last year, but I was just craving consistency. I knew those big throws at Worlds and in the Diamond League final were outliers. Not that I wouldn’t be able to reach those distances again, but what I really wanted was to put together a season where I was always hitting 62 to 64 meters no matter what. But a lot of things changed last year. My coach, John Dagata ended up moving to the Bay area while I stayed in San Diego and did a lot of training on my own. Both of us were very busy and it was sometimes difficult to set up sessions where he could coach me over Facetime. I would go to him for training camps, and we did our best, but after a while I had to face the fact that it wasn’t working.
After the two meets in April in China (Note: Lagi went 60.61m to finish tenth at the Xiamen Diamond League meeting, then no-marked a week later in Suzhou), I was like, “We are in crisis mode.”
My training was going better later in the summer, but I still wasn’t consistent. I knew I could make the team for Paris, but the other girls got it done that day and I didn’t. Missing out on the Olympics put me in a position to look at my career and say, “Do we want to do this again? Do we want to go through another season of craving consistency and not finding it?” There had to be a better way to move forward.
And that’s when you started thinking about making some changes?
After the Olympic Trials, I decided to end my season. Someone told me at the time that it was a stupid move, but how was that stupid if I wasn’t feeling right physically or mentally? No amount of, “You got this!” was going to make it better, so I took six weeks off, sat down and was like “Alright, this was the second team you haven’t made. This was the third season in a row of trying to find consistency.”
I did some soul searching. I was craving the kind of consistency I had in college in 2019 when on my worst days I still usually threw 58 or 59 meters. Since then, I’d had too many meets where I was throwing like 55 meters. I took six weeks off, then told Dagata I was ready to get back on the horse, but there were things I needed to do to actually ride it and not let it take me wherever. I couldn’t afford to live in Oakland, and I wasn’t in an emotional state to drop everything and move anyway. Some athletes might have done it, but I’m an emotional thrower, and if I don’t feel comfortable it affects my training. I wanted to stay closer to home, and I told Dagata I wanted to bring on my high school coach Jorge Reyes, so I’d have someone to be here with me to bounce ideas off of and to give me immediate feedback. I realized that throwing was a social sport for me, and I thrived around other people. In 2024, I was alone for probably eighty percent of my training, and that just didn’t work. I had stayed close with Jorge through college and my pro years, and he was always easy to communicate with and good to bounce ideas off of. I did that with teammates in college. When the coach said something, I might ask the other throwers, “Do you understand what he’s saying?” I just always enjoyed training in a place where I had other people to interact with.
So it helped having Coach Reyes around, but I was also thinking back to my time at Iowa. I had three amazing years throwing for Eric Werskey, and we kept in touch after he took the job at Florida after the Olympic Trials in 2021.
After the 2024 season, I got to a point where I felt a little lost in the situation I was in, so I sat down with Coach Reyes and told him I was considering contacting Werskey and asking him to work with me again. I went back and forth on it and couldn’t make up my mind, and I must have been driving Coach Reyes crazy, because one day after practice he gave me an ultimatum. He looked at me and said, “You are going to call me tonight and tell me what you’re doing. You are going to make a decision and we are going to move on from there and never talk about this again.”
So that’s what I did. I went home and made my decision.
Which was?
I decided to ask Coach Werskey to take over my training. But first, I had to talk to Dagata. We won a medal together, and I respect him as a coach, but the situation just wasn’t working for me. So I told Dagata, then I had to reach out to Werskey. I guess I probably should have called him first, but…
Anyway, I called Werskey and at first I avoided asking him what I wanted to ask him. I was like, “How are you? How is everything at Florida?” Finally, I got around to it and asked if he’d be my coach for the 2025 season.
He said he would, so we set it up where I still work with Coach Reyes, but we send Eric videos right after practice and he gives me feedback every day as soon as he can. Maybe a text message. Maybe a voicemail in our coaching chat. “Hey, here is what I see…” Those quick responses and Eric and Coach Reyes’ ability to work together have made a big difference for me. Over the course of the last few months, I’ve seen so much growth. And I’ve been able to make it to Florida around once a month to work with him in person.
Are you excited to get a chance to compete at Throw Town?
Yes. I’ve never been there before, but I’m excited to see how I do in the wind. I know people freak out about “wind this” and “wind that,” but let’s be real. Isn’t that why we go to meets like Triton? I actually prefer less wind most of the time because if you have a strong wind and don’t find your rhythm it will eat you. But sometimes the wind can also show you what’s possible, like last year with Joe Brown and Veronica Fraley. They both threw well at Throw Town then ended up in the Olympics, so are you going to tell me those throws in Oklahoma weren’t real?
Because you won in 2023, you have a bye for this year’s Worlds, right?
I do have the bye for Tokyo, and it probably saved my career. It was crushing not to make it to the Olympics last year, and during those six weeks after the Trials I spent a lot of time contemplating whether or not I was done. But then I’d think, “Well, I have the bye, so I might as well keep going and see how much ass I can kick before I give it up.”
Note: The World Invitational will take place at Throw Town from April 10-13. Check out Throws University for a livestream featuring Joe Frontier and yours truly as commentators!
Rachel Dincoff at the 2021 Olympic Trials. Photo Courtesy of USATF.
In 2021, Rachel Dincoff came from nowhere–well, New Mexico anyway–to seize a spot on the US team for the Tokyo Olympics. She’d moved to America’s 36th most populous state three years earlier to work with Coach Doug Reynolds, and her sacrifice–New Mexico is home to 47 different types of snakes for god’s sake–had finally paid off. She followed that success by making the US team again in 2022, this time for the World Championships, and as she prepared for the 2023 season, Rachel had reason to believe that her dream of becoming one of the world’s top discus throwers might be coming true.
Then disaster struck. And re-struck. And struck again.
I’ll let Rachel tell the story, but suffice it to say that when she enters the ring next week at the World Invitational in Ramona, it will be a meaningful moment for her and for the sport to which she has given so much.
The last time I saw you was in Eugene for the 2022 Worlds. You finished your season a few weeks later at the ISTAF meet in Berlin, and have not competed since! What happened?
In early March of 2023, I was back in Florida where I live after doing a training camp with Doug in Kansas, where he coaches now. I’d been sick for a few days, and was still not feeling well when I got up for a Sunday morning workout. My intuition told me to take a rest day, but the athlete inside of me said, “No! You must work out!” I was doing a plyometric exercise and Boom! It felt like someone had thrown something and hit me in the back of the leg.
It’s hard to say with an injury like that if it happened in the moment or it had been building over time, but I knew right away it was serious. My boyfriend, Carl Lawson, was in the gym with me. He’s a pro football player and he’d torn his Achilles a couple of years earlier. He scooped me up, put me on a bench and did a Thompson test on my leg, and he could tell right away I’d torn mine. I was in surgery three days later.
That must have been devastating, with another World Championships coming up in 2023, and the Olympics in 2024.
I was actually pretty optimistic at first. Carl and I live in south Florida, which is a big football community, and we knew players who’d recovered from a torn Achilles in the space of a year. Carl had done it himself. He tore his Achilles in August of 2021, had to have two surgeries, and still made it back for the 2022, so I saw no reason why I couldn’t do the same thing and recover in time to compete for a spot in Paris.
But a couple of months into my recovery, I felt like I still didn’t have a strong connection down there. An Achilles tear takes time to heal, but even after five months of hard work, I wasn’t making progress, and I started to feel the clock winding down on my chances to get ready for 2024. It was the most stressed I’d ever been. I just couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t getting better. I’d had an uncomfortable experience with a medical professional who was pulling on my ankle at an early stage, something which I now know should not have been done. But I couldn’t say for sure if that caused a setback, or if I was just pushing too hard in rehab. Finally, I went back to Dr. O’Malley in New York, who had done my surgery. He examined me and saw that my Achilles needed to be repaired again!
The difficult conversation this time was whether he should take part of my hamstring to repair the Achilles or use tissue from a cadaver. Carl had done it with his hamstring, and using your own tissue is better in some ways, so that’s what I chose to do. But then I had an MRI in the morning before the second surgery, and it showed that the tendon wasn’t too badly torn, and they said they could probably fix it using the cadaver tissue, which would make for a shorter recovery period because I wouldn’t also be dealing with weakness in my hamstring. So that’s what we chose to do.
And then…?
Four months later I started showing signs that my body was rejecting the cadaver tissue.
So, in December of 2023, I had my third surgery. They took, I believe, seven inches of part of my hamstring and also a tendon from my foot and used that to repair my Achilles.
How were you able to keep it together through all that?
I did a pretty good job of staying positive and focusing on my goals, even after the third surgery. I kept telling myself that I could still make it back for the Olympic Trials, which I know was kind of crazy, but I needed something to keep me going or I was going to get very depressed.
And of course, I had Carl. He’d been through two Achilles surgeries and before that two ACL surgeries, and he understood the physical and emotional toll that takes on an athlete.
Carl was dealing with some difficulties in his sport at the same time, wasn’t he?
He was. After tearing his Achilles and missing his first year with the New York Jets, he came back strong and got seven sacks in 2022. But in 2023, he had a lot of frustrations with the team. They lost Aaron Rogers right away, then for some reason they stopped playing Carl very much, which was really disappointing, so we had to be there for each other. Sometimes, it was like, “Who’s got the sunshine today?” But we got through it, and all that trauma made our relationship even stronger.
And things have finally settled down for both of you, yes?
They have. Carl signed with the Cowboys last year and had some really good games. It was a nice comeback year where he showed he’s still in the mix . In that business, they like to push out the veterans sometimes, but he was like “I’m here to stay!” And after all he’s been through, it’s amazing the way he’s moving now. The guy is a freak. I mean that as a compliment.
Of course. And you’re back on track as well?
I’m pretty much ready to go with my training. I need to give myself more grace, as hard as that is to do as an athlete, but I’m throwing well and seeing good things. I know I’m probably not going to PR in Oklahoma, but I’m excited to get started again.
Ideally, I wouldn’t want to open up this early, but my goal is to make the World Championships this summer, and this meet has points. And since I haven’t competed in two years, I need to get some meets under me to get my feel back for competing, for dealing with nerves and things like that.
What is your training setup like these days?
Doug will always be my primary coach. With him in Kansas and me in Florida, we spend a lot of time on the phone, and I send him videos. After the meet in Oklahoma, I’ll go to Kansas to train with him for a while and compete there.
I also have a few people who watch me train a little bit here in Florida. On Wednesdays, I go to the University of Miami and train with Coach Cory Young and some of the throwers there. Some days, I throw at a high school near here. Wolfgang Schmidt watches me sometimes.
Wolfgang Schmidt?
Yep. I really enjoy working with him. Doug and I are two peas in a pod in that we both love biomechanics and breaking stuff down, but that sometimes leads to me overthinking. Wolfgang is very relaxed. Are you balanced? Is the disc coming out of your hand nicely? His idea is to get the basics down–foot in the middle, good release, discus behind you–and your body will figure it out from there. At first, his approach was so simple I was wondering if I’d get anything out of it, but now I can see how it builds confidence and rhythm. I really enjoy his coaching style.
Note: The World Invitational will take place at Throw Town from April 10-13. Check out Throws University for a livestream featuring Joe Frontier and Moi as commentators!
Shot Put & Discus Coaches & Throwers All Levels of Development
We have all sat through endless presentations at clinics, listening to dry, boring talks about the theory of throwing technique or some special new drill. BUT how can you Apply this to your sophomore thrower who just came out from basketball?
What’s a Practical Application of all this theory that will work for you AND your thrower?
Monday April 15, 2024 – Two Sessions – 6:00 pm Eastern & 6:00 pm Pacific
SPECIAL INTRODUCTORY PRICING
Clinic Attendance Free: – Sign up for one or both
Video Analysis – Limit Four Throwers each Session $35
The first four throwers accepted per session will be the subjects of Mac’s Learn by Watching.
Select the session(s) you prefer from these options
Click Hereto Register for the Webinar – 6:00 pm Eastern time
Click Here to Register for the Analysis – 6:00 pm Eastern time
Click Here to Register for the Webinar – 6:00 pm Pacific time
Click Here to Register for the Analysis – 6:00 pm Pacific time
Agenda:– 60 minutes or less
Key Technical Point Discussion
10-12 minutes of the Basic Checklist Points to watch for during the season
Basic Points to watch for that you can have your athletes use to coach themselves.
Learn By Watching
Mac will analyze the throws of four throwers providing live Q&A
Summary
Mac will summarize and engage in live Q&A with the group.
There will be a replay available of the session for those in attendance.
Survey
How can I better share my passion for the shot and discuss with you?
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!
Photo courtesy of Matthew Quine for Diamond League AG
What is it that makes Australians so nice? Do the crocodiles eat all the mean people there? Or does growing up around koala bears naturally make folks more relaxed and outgoing?
We’ll never know.
One thing’s for sure, though. I greatly enjoyed speaking with members of the Australian contingent at the 2023 Diamond League Final.
The women’s jav kicked off the comp at 11 a.m. on a lovely Saturday morning in Eugene. At that moment, it was 5 a.m. Sunday in Sydney, which is where 2023 World Championships bronze medalist Mackenzie Little lives and trains. I might have been a tad grouchy were I experiencing the level of jet lag that Mackenzie and her coach, Angus McEntyre, must have been feeling at that moment, but they appeared to be having a wonderful time, smiling and laughing whenever she bopped over for a quick chat at the rail between attempts.
Photo courtesy of me.
Mackenzie did not have her best stuff on this day. She set a PB of 65.70m at the Lausanne Diamond League Meeting earlier this season, and went 63.38m in winning her Budapest bronze, but she reached the 60-meter line only once in Eugene and settled for a best of 61.24m to take third behind Worlds champ Haruka Kitaguchi and fellow Australasian Tori Peeters.
That did not, however, harsh Mackenzie’s mellow. She was happy and gracious during a post-comp chat.
“I had a good time,” she admitted. “Not because I got the throws I wanted necessarily, but this core group of throwers has gotten quite close and I was excited watching them.”
When asked why the javelin ladies seem to get on so well, Mackenzie explained, “You can’t have an ego when you throw jav. I think we all know how frustrating it can be sometimes, so we understand each other.”
The most frustrating time for Mackenzie came when she returned to Australia after a stellar career representing Stanford, for whom she was NCAA champion in 2018 and 2019.
The transition from collegiate to pro athlete can be tricky, and Mackenzie had trouble finding her footing. Lingering shoulder and elbow problems did not help. She reached out to McEntyre on the recommendation of the head Australian jav coach, but her level of frustration gave him pause.
“I think we can make this work,” he told her at the time, “But I can’t do much if you’re stuck in a negative headspace.”
“She was,” McEntyre recalls, “a bit lost. I was coaching one of her good friends, a javelin thrower named Chrissie Grun, and Mackenzie told Chrissie, ‘I don’t know if I can do this anymore.’ But Chrissie said, ‘Yes, you can, and Angus is someone you can work with.’”
It was a plus that Coach McEntyre’s “day job” was running a chiropractic clinic, so he was able to help Mackenzie mend as they got to know each other. Looking back, he says “it was the chiropractic that started the relationship. During the Covid period we built up her shoulder and elbow, which also helped us build trust.”
In October of 2020, she reached 60 meters for the first time in two years, hitting a PB 61.47m at a comp in Sydney.
She PB’d again during the Olympic qualification round a year later in Tokyo, and ended up finishing eighth in the final. McEntyre says they’ve been “on cruise control since,” with only the occasional “hiccup” along the way.
At the 2022 Worlds, Mackenzie squeaked through qualifying in 12th place, then hit a 63.22m PB on her opener in the final. She was unable to build on that though, and finished in fifth, just five excruciating centimeters short of the podium.
This summer, she started slowly in the Budapest qualification round before bashing 63.45m on her third attempt, then started slowly again in the final. A best of 61.41m had her in fifth after three rounds, but this time she was able to keep climbing. “I learned a lot over the past year,” she said later. “And I was not going to be fifth again.”
Mackenzie produced her best throw on her last attempt, a 63.38m toss that won her the bronze.
And here I will tell you something crazy.
Mackenzie fought her way to the top of her sport while at the same time attending medical school. She is preparing for a career as a surgeon, and took her final exam on the flight from Sydney to Eugene for the DL final.
When asked how she managed this seemingly impossible task, Mackenzie shrugged. “Everyone in athletics has their passions outside. Mine just happens to be a little more structured. But I have a little more help than the average person with my coach taking care of me.”
Having played rugby at a high level while undertaking his chiropractic studies, McEntyre says he was able to relate to the challenges Mackenzie faced trying to balance athletics and academics.
“The biggest challenge for me,’ he says, “is to make sure she doesn’t get cooked or exhausted. I’ve always been careful around exam weeks, but it helps that the study side is more highly strung for her, so it can be a bit of a break when we switch to jav mode.”
McEntyre’s duties have included helping Mackenzie on practice quizzes, sometimes at unlikely moments. During early warmups prior to competing in Budapest, for example.
“We were having a contest to see who could get the most questions right,” he explained. “I guess most people might think that’s weird.”
Not as weird as being lucid and engaging while jet-lagged, as both “Macs” were on this exquisite afternoon.
“I’ve come to comps a little jet lagged and a little tired before,” Mackenzie told me. “It just builds my confidence. There’s no excuse for not throwing well. I am ready, though, for a big sleep.”
And with that, she left the shade of the media tent and strode off into a sun almost as bright as her future.
Photo courtesy of Marta Gorczynska for Diamond League AG
Another amicable Aussie competing in Eugene was discus thrower Matt Denny, a man who has mastered the art of throwing big when it counts. In 2018, for example, he produced a lifetime best of 64.03m to win the Australian Championships. A year later, he repeated as Australian champ with another PB, this time 65.28m, which he topped at the Doha Worlds by launching 65.43m to take sixth. He broke 67 meters for the first time during the Olympic final in 2021, and 68 meters for the first time this summer in Budapest.
Denny’s coach, Dale Stevenson, says that some people are just “exceptional competitors,” and Matt is one of them. “His happy place,” according to Stevenson, “is out there competing against the top athletes. It brings the best out of him.”
That was evident in Eugene, where Denny injected some much-needed brio into an otherwise subdued competition. He did his best to engage the crowd before each attempt, and refused to take it personally when they ignored him prior to his third throw. (The men’s 800 meters was about to begin and this was, after all, Eugene.)
The 66.36m he produced on that attempt put Denny in third place behind Kristjan Čeh and Daniel Ståhl, the twin Everests of the event.
A lesser individual might have been content with such a throw, coming as it did at the end of a loooong season. For unexplained reasons, winter here is summer in Australia, and Denny’s first comp took place way back on February 11th.
But Coach Stevenson knows his man, and throwing against giant World Champions (Kristjan, Daniel and Andrius Gudžius have won every World title since 2017) did in fact bring out the best of Denny on this gorgeous afternoon in Eugene.
He jumped ahead of Ståhl by a centimeter with a 67.37m toss in round four, then blasted a new PB of 68.43m on his final attempt to barge past Čeh for the title of 2023 Diamond League Champ, a win Denny described afterwards as “really satisfying.”
“You idolize the greats,” he explained. “You put them on a pedestal. Especially Daniel, who is probably the greatest ever as a competitor. So it was a special moment to get the win and have Daniel be the first guy to give me a hug and congratulate me. It reminded me of how good a community this is, for them to be like, ‘Lets go get some beers!’”
As to the varying levels of crowd support, Denny said he learned from Olympic and World champ high jumper Gimbo Tamberi that it’s best to get people’s attention by yelling before asking them to clap. He tried this before his sixth attempt and drew a spirited response. The extra bit of energy he absorbed from the crowd was all Denny needed on a day when he felt ready to rumble.
“I had some warmups of around 65 meters,” he explained. “And I know I’m in good nick if I’m doing that. When the comp began, I kept falling out of my delivery, but I knew there was something there.”
The next step will be getting on the podium at an Olympics or Worlds, no easy task with Čeh, Ståhl, and Mykolas Alekna throwing at historically high levels. With those three in the mix, it could conceivably take 70 meters to get on the stand in Paris and Tokyo.
In an effort to raise his game, Denny added a wrinkle to his technique this season by setting up for the throw with his right foot offset a bit then stepping forward after his windup. You’ve heard of the “Crouser slide”? Let’s call this the “Denny step.” If you say it fast like it’s one word it sounds pretty cool. Denny-step. Denny-step. Denny-step. See?
Matt and Dale, if you pursue a trademark, I’d like a t-shirt.
Dale says the Denny-step evolved to help Matt keep his hips “underneath his shoulders on entry,” and it might not be the end of their tinkering.
“We’re playing around with other variations, too,” he explained. “We’ll experiment with some of those during the Aussie domestic season from January to April.”
Dale did not divulge the exact nature of what they’ll be trying, but according to internet sources, he and Denny are considering everything from learning to cuss in Lithuanian to a never-before-seen discus move known as the “Kick-the-Crotch-of-Kristjan.”
In the meantime…
Are you free on 10-12th November?
If so, join me in beautiful Tallinn, Estonia, for the 2023 European Discus Conference which features excellent beer and major insights into the technique and training of guys like Daniel Ståhl, Sam Mattis, Kristjan Čeh, and Mykolas Alekna.
The coaches you see in the above photo will share their knowledge through a series of lectures and live demonstrations and, even better, you can ask follow-ups or just shoot the breeze with them and other coaches from all over the world while dining or maybe doing the backstroke at the amazing Tallink Spa and Conference Hotel where the conference is held. Here’s a bird’s-eye view:
And see this person popping out of the water?
On November 10-12th that might be Gerd Kanter or Kristjan Čeh or Dane Miller. I’ll end here so you can start checking flights.
