Category Archives: USATF

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 26th Edition

Madison Wiltrout, Photo Courtesy of the UNC athletics site.

Three for three

North Carolina throws coach Amin Nikfar had a heck of a weekend at the 2023 Toyota USATF Outdoor Championships.

The fun began on Day 1 when former Tar Heel All-American Madison Wiltrout finished third in the women’s javelin, in a nice ending to what had been an up-and-down season.

Plagued all year by foot and back issues–nothing major, just “typical javelin stuff” according to Coach Nikfar–Madison captured her third ACC Conference title in May with a promising 58.51m toss, but ended up eighth at the 2023 NCAA Championships after placing third in 2022.

In all her comps leading up to USAs, Madison used a short approach as a way of reducing the stress on her body, but Coach Nikfar says she insisted on going with a full runup in Eugene.

“She was adamant about it,” he says. “Madison is strong, and could throw far enough from a short approach to make any domestic final, but she was not going to play it safe at USAs.”

Her temerity paid off in round one when she produced the 55.51m toss that eventually got her on the podium next to Maggie Malone (58.79m) and Maddie Harris (60.73m).

Madison has not hit the 63.80m automatic qualifying mark for Worlds, nor is she close to the top thirty-six in ranking. She would have until the end of the month to chase one or the other, but agreed with Coach Nikfar that the wiser move right now is to shut it down for 2023, get healthy, and come out firing in 2024, when she hopes to put the experience she gained in Eugene to good use.

Her coach says that competing in a “high octane meet” like the USAs provides an athlete with a “clear view of what they have to do to make their technique tolerant to high pressure situations.”

He described Madison’s performance in Eugene as, “good, not great. She did a good job, and I think any time a highly-driven athlete finishes anywhere but on top of the podium, if I call it ‘great’ they won’t believe me. But, she learned a lot and got more experience, and she’s ready to get some rest.”

Ladies and gents, your USA men’s hammer squad for the 2023 Worlds: Daniel Haugh, Rudy Winkler, and Alex Young. Photo stolen from Alex’s Instagram page.

Another of Coach Nikfar’s athletes, hammer thrower Alex Young, showed how valuable championship experience can be when he earned a podium spot in Eugene despite coming in with a season’s best of 73.38m–well below his 78.52m PB.

Rudy Winkler and Daniel Haugh were prohibitive favorites to make the team for Budapest, so it looked like Alex would be left to battle fellow veteran Sean Donnelly and a group of up-and-comers including Brock Eager and Jordan Geist for the last open spot.

Alex opened with a season’s best 73.52m, which put him third behind Winkler (78.23m) and Haugh (74.95m) until Eager jumped him with a 74.28m toss in round two. 

But Eager, who PB’d earlier this year with a 76.58m chuck at Ironwood, was unable to improve on that second throw, and Geist, who reached 75.97m and 75.25m in the two comps leading up to USAs, topped out with a 73.48m fourth-rounder. 

From his spot near the cage, Coach Nikfar could hear the sound of opportunity knocking. 

“If you leave you leave the door open,” he observed afterwards, “a guy who is talented and has experience will get through.”

Alex’s six USATF Championships appearances, including four podium finishes and one win (in 2017), made him one of the most battle-tested athletes in any event at USAs, and allowed him to stay calm as the competition wore on with, in Coach Nikfar’s words, “no freakouts and no intent to try to break records.”

Alex’s 75.87m toss in round four demonstrated his veteran moxie. It was more than two meters under his PB, but more than two over his season’s best prior to USAs. Most importantly, it moved him into third place and earned him his third World Championships appearance. 

Jillian Shippee came up big in a hellacious women’s hammer comp at USAs. Photo courtesy of the UNC athletics site.

Next up for Coach Nikfar was the women’s hammer, which featured a ridonkulous eight competitors ranked in the top fifteen by World Athletics. With defending champion Brooke Andersen receiving a Budapest bye, there were three spots up for grabs, but anyone wanting to score a ticket to Worlds would have to deal with the likes of 2022 bronze medalist Janee’ Kassanavoid, 2019 World Champion DeAnna Price, 2022 Worlds finalist Annette Echikunwoke, 2017 NCAA champ Maggie Ewen,  2018 NCAA champ Janeah Stewart, and a crew of up-and-comers including Rachel Tanczos, Erin Reese, and Maddie Malone.

It was hard to imagine a first-year pro having any chance against that Murderers’ Row, especially a first-year pro who had finished no better than thirteenth in her two previous USATF Championships, but Coach Nikfar says that Jillian Shippee, whom he began coaching when he came to UNC in the fall of 2019, had two things going for her: consistency in training and boldness in competition.

They set a “manageable” goal of making the top eight, and decided that anything beyond that would be a bonus, but in a phone call a few days before USAs, Coach Nikfar expressed optimism about Jillian’s chances. “If you can be bold in a competition like this,” he told me, “a lot will come your way.”

Jillian got right after it when the festivities began, going 72.40m in round one, a distance which would almost certainly garner her a top-eight finish. Her “manageable” goal fulfilled, she found herself in fourth place behind Brooke, DeAnna, and Annette going into round two, with Kassanavoid sitting fifth.

That’s rarified air for someone who finished ninth at NCAAs her senior year, and it would have understandable if Jillian lost her equilibrium in the bigness of the moment. Instead, she stepped in for her second throw and smashed a PB of almost two meters. That toss–74.93m–surpassed the automatic qualifying mark for Worlds and elevated her into third place, where she stayed until Kassanavoid jumped her in round six.

“It was amazing,” Coach Nikfar said afterwards, “to have an athlete be able to endure that pressure and also thrive in it and just take big swings every throw.”

Jillian will now join Anderson, Price, and Kassanavoid on the squad for Budapest, and whatever happens there, Coach Nikfar says that making the team showed her that she belongs among the best in the event.

“The sense of belonging is a thing that matters,” he says. “She got the best version of that ever at USAs. These are people she watched for a long time, and now she’s on a USA roster with them.”

Daniel STÅHL wins the Men’s Discus Throw with 67.03m at London Athletics Meet on 23 July 2023. Photo courtesy of the London Diamond League meeting.

The Big D!

This is getting redundant, but how about ol’ Daniel Ståhl laying the wood to the best discus dudes in the world once again at the London Diamond League meeting? His winning distance of 67.03m was not epic, but on the broadcast it looked like it rained the morning of the comp, so the air might have been a little heavy or the ring a little slick. Either way, a win is a win when you’re going against the top guys, and the Big Man is looking mighty dangerous as the World Championships loom.

The book about Daniel’s career that my friend Roger Einbecker and I have been putting together with Daniel’s former coach Vésteinn Hafsteinsson has been sent to a graphic designer and should be ready soon. We are going to self-publish this one, and as this is our first rodeo I’m sure there will be a few more obstacles to overcome, but in the meantime, Daniel, keep up the good work!

At this rate, we may have to start working on a sequel.

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: Women’s Hammer Contenders

DeAnna Price is a big reason why the US has come to dominate in the women’s hammer.

The United States is stacked in the women’s hammer. How stacked?  A top-30 ranking is enough to qualify an athlete for the World Championships in Budapest, and 11 of the women on the start list for today’s 2023 Toyota USATF Outdoor Championships are in the top 30.   

Because Brooke Andersen was nice enough to win the event at last year’s Worlds in Eugene, the United States gets to send four women’s hammer throwers–Brooke and three others–to Budapest. The competition for those three spots begins at 4:00pm Pacific time today, and it will be fierce. Let’s take a quick look at the contenders.

 The Veterans

Several of the athletes in today’s comp have made senior international teams in recent years, and three have gotten on the podium. Among them is defending World champ Andersen, whose Budapest bye allowed her the freedom to spend two weeks competing in Europe in June rather than staying home to prep a mini-peak for USAs. 

Brooke Andersen. Photo courtesy of TrackTown USA.

While across the pond, Brooke competed in four meets in four different countries, and won them all. The prize money from meets like those along with support from USATF and Nike have allowed Brooke to quit her job at Chipotle and finally devote herself full time to training. While she probably misses the employee discount, Brooke has performed at an extremely high level all season and on May 20th became the third woman ever to crack the 80-meter barrier, something which she may well do again today in Eugene.

Janee’ Kassanavoid took the bronze at last year’s Worlds, and is a favorite to grab one of the three open spots on this year’s squad for Budapest. After smashing a 78.00m PB in 2022, Janee’ has shown consistency in 2023–three comps over 75.00m–but has yet to hit the Big One. The USATF Championships has been known to bring out the best in the women hammer throwers, though, so this might be the day. 

Speaking of hitting the Big One, two years ago at the Olympic Trials, 2019 World Champion DeAnna Price set the current American record of 80.31m before falling afoul of the hip and foot injuries which derailed her hopes of medaling in Tokyo and made 2022 all about rehabbing. The good news for hammer fans is that she’s baaaaack, and in spite of a small issue with a benign growth on her foot earlier this spring, looks a lot like her old self. She, too, has been over 75.00m three times this season, with a best of 77.25m at the Ironwood Classic. As to her ability to make the team and contend for the podium in Budapest, DeAnna’s husband/coach JC Lambert says that “it will ultimately come down to staying healthy. She had a couple of training PBs this year for the first time since 2021, so if she can get enough high quality reps in training this summer, I won’t rule out another 80-meter throw.”

Annette Echikunwoke. Photo courtesy of USATF.

Another veteran looking for a return to PB Land is Annette Echikunwoke, who was twelfth in last year’s Worlds. Annette posted her all-time best of 75.49m in 2021, and came close to equaling it in Tucson this May, hitting an even 75.00m at the USATF Throws Festival. That was her only comp of 75.00m or more this season, and she’ll need to throw at least that far to make the Budapest squad. But if you know her story, you know that the challenge of popping off a season’s best at the USATF Championships will not intimidate Annette. She is tough, determined, and battle-tested, and unlikely to wilt under the pressure of today’s comp.

Maggie Ewen, who dominated in the shot put last night, made the US team for the 2017 Worlds as a hammer thrower, but largely set that implement aside after finishing 4th in the shot at the 2019 Worlds.

In the fall of 2021, just after Maggie won the shot at the Diamond League final, I asked her coach, Kyle Long, if they’d ever go back to trying to compete in both events. He described a shot/hammer double as possible, but expressed concern that trying to compete at a world class level in both would be tricky. “It would take a lot of experimental training,” he cautioned, “and the result might be mental exhaustion. The women have pushed the event so far, it might be disrespectful to think ‘Oh yeah, we can do both.’”

But he and Maggie agreed that she had a lot of untapped potential in the hammer, and focusing only on the shot made Maggie miss her days at Arizona State where she won NCAA titles in both (and the disc as well).

They started training hammer again in 2021, but competed only three times. This year, Maggie has thrown the hammer in five comps, and launched a 75.10m PB in Tucson. And, funny thing, splitting her time between the two events has made her a better shot putter.

For one thing, Kyle says, “the hammer is a good specific strength exercise. It trains the dynamic aspect of throwing and is a heck of a workout for Maggie, so even if she doesn’t make the team for Budapest, we’ll keep throwing it in practice.”

Then, there’s the mental aspect. It turns out that training the same implement every day might have caused Maggie to overthink, and certainly made it harder to shake off a bad performance. 

“When she was throwing three events in college,” Kyle explained, “it was easy to move on from a bad day or a bad session because there was always another event to focus on.”

Maggie has described the hammer as a “stress reliever” and after winning the shot title last night with a remarkably consistent series (4 of 6 throws at 19.76m or better) should be in great spirits as she tries to earn a second slot in Budapest.

The Up-and-Comers

So far this season, Rachel Tanczos has been an exception to the rule that throwers always struggle during their first year as pros. Rachel has done the opposite of struggling, instead surpassing her 2022 PB in seven of eight meets as a pro. In her most recent outing, at the Ironwood Classic, she blasted a 73.87m toss that stands as the ninth farthest throw in the world this year.

Rachel Tanczos celebrating her PB earlier this season. Photo lifted from Rachel’s Instagram page.

How did this happen? 

According to Rachel, “it’s a combo of things. When I was in college at Notre Dame, I competed in shot, disc, and hammer, so I just did not get a ton of reps as a hammer thrower. Now, I don’t have to worry about training three events or going to classes. And I’m really happy to be working with AG Kruger at Ashland University.”

Rachel recently made another change that should help her effort to make the podium today. 

“Until a couple of weeks ago,” she says, “I was waitressing at a local brewery, so some days I’d throw, lift, then work five hours on my feet. And I also had to decline a couple of opportunities to compete because I couldn’t get out of my weekend shifts. Finally, I decided that I didn’t move to Ashland to be a waitress.”

Will the additional rest allow Rachel to get near her 73.87m PB and get in the hunt for Budapest? 

“Me being a first-year pro, I don’t feel like I have too much pressure, “she explained. “I’m not sure if I’m on too many people’s radars, but hopefully I can be someone to apply some pressure and maybe come out and make some noise.”

Another rookie on the pro tour hoping to get in the mix today is Jillian Shippee, whose coach, Amin Nikfar, describes her as a “talented athlete, who has developed a lot as a hammer thrower lately.” Jillian demonstrated that development when she PB’d by nearly three meters this season, hitting 73.01m in April.

Jillian Shippee after her big PB. Photo stolen from Jillian’s Instagram page.

The secret to her success? Time on task, according to Coach Nikfar. “We just throw a lot,” he told me recently. “Jillian is really good with consistency, and also with being bold on throws. If you can be bold in competition, a lot will come your way.  I always tell my athletes, the meek might inherit the earth, but they ain’t gonna get six throws.”

Look for Jillian to get the full six tonight, and if any of the Big Guns falter, to make a play for the podium.

Erin Reese showed boldness at the 2021 Trials where she blasted a PB of 72.53m. A lousy 2022 season ensued, but she is back in form this year and has gone over 70 meters six times, including a 73.47m bomb in April and a 72.48m toss at Ironwood. She’s tough under pressure (you can read more about her exploits here)  and like Jillian, looks ready to barge her way into the conversation at USAs. 

Another up-and-comer, Maddie Malone, smashed a 72.37m PB to take second at the recent NCAA meet in Austin. That was her first time over 70 meters, and though she may not be quite ready to compete for a Worlds spot, the experience she gets tonight will serve her well as she embarks on her own career as a pro.

Janeah Stewart, the 2018 NCAA champion, hit 75.43m in 2019 but took time away from the sport to become mother to a little girl named Ja’Myri, who can of late be found running around at practice harassing coach John Smith. “She’s a pickpocket,” he said recently. “She’ll grab your keys or phone if you’re not looking. Great kid, by the way.”

Smith says that it has taken two-and-a-half years for Janeah to finally get back to her old strength and performance levels, but that just in the last thirty days they are again seeing training PBs. 

Stewart has been remarkably consistent this year, throwing between 70.00m and 71.63m in six of seven comps. And Smith is a legendary master of the art of peaking, as evinced when Jalani Davis came up big last night in the shot and made the squad for Budapest.

With Smith in her corner, Stewart cannot be counted out.

Another exciting young hammer thrower, Alyssa Wilson, will sadly not be competing tonight. Wilson caused a sensation at the 2021 Trials when she launched a 73.75m PB in qualification, and followed that with a remarkable 2022 campaign during which she went 74.78m to take second at the NCAAs and 71.73m for sixth at USAs. Unfortunately, a back injury has put a premature end to her first year as a pro. 

Time to get this posted before the comp starts! 

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: 5 Questions about the Men’s Disc

Sam Mattis with his coach Dane Miller on a day when Sam definitely did not throw like poop. Photo courtesy of Sam’s Instagram page.

Can Sam Mattis stop throwing like doo-doo and win his second national title?

In 2022, Sam Mattis showed himself to be a legit world-class discus thrower by…

  1. Making the finals at Worlds
  2. Finishing fourth at the Diamond League final
  3. Throwing really far (67.19m) in a place that is not California, Arizona, or Oklahoma (he did it in Croatia)

Those three items make Sam’s resumé unique among the current crop of American male discus throwers, and would have denoted him as the clear favorite at the 2023 Toyota USATF Championships held this week in Eugene had he not fallen into a month-long slump.

“He’s been throwing like beep,” Sam’s coach Dane Miller told me recently. “Probably because of the travel.”

Sam’s success in 2022 got him invited to 2023 comps in places as far afield as Qatar, Morocco, Norway, and Finland and, according to Miller, “Sam is so dialed into his patterns of lifting, sleeping and whatever, that it always takes him a while to get back in a groove after he comes home from overseas.”

Luckily, Sam will have had three solid weeks of stateside training by the time the men’s discus comp kicks off at 3:30pm Pacific on Thursday. Dane says that Sam is once again “slamming it” and looks forward to competing for a spot on the US squad for Worlds. 

Prediction: Sam will, in fact, find his mojo and come out on top at the USATF Championships for the first time since 2019.

NCAA discus champ Turner Washington in a serene moment. Photo courtesy of the ASU track page.

Will Turner Washington lose his shirt?

The most memorable moment of the recent NCAA track championships came when Arizona State’s Turner Washington launched a 66.22m missile to win the men’s discus comp, ripped off his shirt, and sprinted over to the stands to celebrate in front of some Arkansas fans who had been razzing him throughout the evening. 

It was a remarkable comeback for Turner who, discouraged by injury and lack of progress, had retired from throwing a year earlier. Luckily, former shot put great Ryan Whiting took over the ASU throws squad and coaxed Turner back into the sport. Now, if he can reach anywhere close to his NCAA-winning mark, he will secure a spot in Budapest.

I have generously offered to travel to Eugene and trash talk Turner during Thursday’s comp to help fire him up, but I have not yet heard back from Whiting or his representatives. Nor have I received an airline ticket from them. 

But I’ll keep checking my inbox.

Prediction: With or without me there slinging insults, Turner will finish in the top three, make his first Worlds team, and celebrate shirtless.

Brian Williams after qualifying for the 2022 Worlds. Photo courtesy of Brian’s Instagram page.

Will throwing fixed-feet fix Brian Williams’ feet?

After hitting 66.14m in 2022, Brian Williams’ best mark so far this season is the 63.54m he threw at the Ironwood Classic last month. He and his coach Ryan Whiting have been working on technical adjustments, and so far they are having more success when Brian stays on the ground as he finishes his throws. This is something that all discus throwers do in training, but most throw farther when they “reverse” or jump on their follow through. 

In Brian’s case, he has occasionally reached 65 meters in practice without reversing, only to suffer a loss in distance when he jumps into his finish.

If Sam Mattis and Turner Washington are on their game, they will likely battle for the top two spots at USAs, but after that the field is wide open. Don’t be surprised if Brian goes fixed-feet for at least one or two rounds in an effort to get into the 64-meter range, which would likely secure him a spot on the team.

Prediction: Brian will eschew the reverse, hug the ground, and make the team.

Wow, and I thought the guys throwing at NCAA’s were old! Nik Arrhenius and child. Photo courtesy of Nik’s Instagram page.

Why is a former Swedish champion throwing in this meet?

That would be Niklas Arrhenhius, a fifteen-time former Swedish champion–five in the indoor shot, three in the outdoor shot, seven in the disc. 

But he was born and raised in the United States, and has long contemplated the idea of competing at a US championships.

“Throwing,” he explained recently, “was always a Swedish thing for me because my dad competed for Sweden. I’m proud of my heritage, and was always glad to represent Sweden at the World and European Championships.”

But there was something about the Olympic Games that got him thinking stars and stripes.

“At the 2008 Olympics,” Nik recalls, “I remember seeing the Dream Team in the cafeteria at the Olympic Village and I thought, ‘I’m not that Swedish. I was born in America. Maybe I should represent the US?’”

If it were only that simple. Nik began seriously pursuing a change of allegiance in 2016, but then the IAAF froze all applications. He filed again in 2019, hoping to qualify for the 2020 US Trials, but found out that competing for Sweden in a dual meet versus Finland that August put the kibosh on the process for three years. 

Now, he’s finally eligible, and on Thursday will make his US Championships debut at the age of 40.

His goal in the comp?

“I’d like to get a season’s best and qualify for the full six throws. With my athletes (Nik coaches at Brigham Young University) we talk about having a ‘fearless goal.’ There’s no point in going into a competition with a goal that makes you anxious, so just pick one that you know you can reach and build from there. For me, that’s getting a season’s best and earning six throws.”

Right now, Nik’s SB stands at 61.72m, the twentieth year in a row he has hit the 60-meter mark.

Does that make him old? Maybe. Determined? Certainly. Worth watching on Thursday at 3:30pm Pacific time? Absolutely.

Prediction: Nik goes 62 meters and celebrates with a nap.

Dallin Shurts will try to make a second surprise podium appearance at USAs. Photo courtesy of the BYU track page.

Speaking of the Swedish guy, how is he at double-tasking?

As mentioned, Nik coaches at BYU. His best thrower is Dallin Shurts, who pulled off a shocker last year by taking second in this meet.  Dallin, an extremely large and affable young man, is in the field again, and Nik is hoping they end up in the same flight. 

“If they split up the field and he’s in the first flight and I’m in the second, I won’t be able to coach him because I’ll be in the holding area waiting to compete. If it’s the other way around, I’ll have to throw then run over to the coaches box. So, I’m hoping we end up together.”

Can Dallin, who has been hobbled by plantar fasciitis much of the season, make another run at the podium? 

“I think he can,” says Nik. “I just want him to hit his cues, and if he does he can go 63-plus, which might be enough.”

However the comp goes for them on Thursday, Nik and Dallin plan to be back in the mix in 2024. 

Nik’s first big senior-level meet was the 2006 European Championships in Gothenburg, Sweden, the site of the 2024 World Masters Championships. 

“It might be fun for me to have my first and last championships be in the same city,” he says.

Prediction: The big blonde will throw well and just miss the podium. Nik will still be proud of him.

The Monday Morning Meathead: June 19th Edition.

I’ve been traveling a lot and also contemplating how to make progress on a ten-year plan to paint our house, which is now entering it’s thirteenth year. The plan, I mean. But, I’m ready to commit to a weekly piece on the throws which, as is the case with this inaugural edition, may not appear until Monday evening each week. But “Monday Evening Meathead” doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it?

This photo of, from left to right, a person unknown, Kristjan Čeh, the great Estonian raconteur Raul Rebane, Robert Urbanek, and Daniel Ståhl at the recent Heino Lipp Memorial meeting is courtesy of Robert’s Instagram page from which I stole it.

The Big Man is Back

IN 2019, a year during which Daniel Ståhl was nearly unbeatable, he averaged a best throw of 70.15m in his first six competitions, if we forgive him a No Mark at the Paavo Nurmi Games, which we will. At the end of that season, he was World champion.

In 2021, on the way to Olympic gold, he averaged 68.23m in his first six comps.

Last year, as Daniel turned thirty years old and had to deal with the emergence of Kristjan Čeh (expected) and Mykolas Alekna (not so much) as full-fledged phenoms, that number fell to 67.45m. Unfortunately, those first six meets were a harbinger of things to come as Daniel finished fourth at the 2022 Worlds and fifth at the European Championships.

Will his first six comps of 2023 be a harbinger as well? If so, it might be tough to keep Daniel off the podium in Budapest as his average so far this year is 69.68m.

What accounts for this revival? “He’s having fun again,” says his former coach Vésteinn Hafsteinsson. “Last year, it was hard for him getting beat by Kristjan. Now, he’s over it, and he just wants to do his best to irritate the young guys.”

Also, like real estate, throwing well can sometimes be a matter of location.  Four of Daniel’s first six comps were held in places where he is very comfortable. Two were in Sweden. One took place in Finland, where his mother was born and, according to Vésteinn, “Fourteen thousand people show up to cheer for him.” His most recent outing was the Heino Lipp Memorial in Estonia where Daniel also loves to throw at least in part because, according to his manager  Hans Üürike, Estonians appreciate his sense of humor.

They also appreciate fine discus throwing, and there was plenty to go around at the Heino Lipp. Daniel tossed an SB of 71.45m, the fifth year in a row he’s breached 71 meters…and he finished second.

Kristjan won with a new PB of 71.86m, making Daniel’s 71.45m the farthest second-place throw in history. Finishing third was Fedrick Dacres, who has been on his own revival tour in 2023. He tossed 66.12m and did not come within five meters of the top two spots.

It’s been an exciting season so far for discus fans, with five guys (Daniel, Kristjan, Mykolas, Alex Rose, and Lukas Weißerhaiding) already over 70 meters, and having Daniel back to his old laughing, dancing, bomb-throwing self bodes well for the summer ahead.

And don’t get me wrong when I refer to “location” as having contributed to Daniel’s hot start. As far as Vésteinn knows, none of Daniel’s comps this year have featured especially favorable wind conditions. In fact, on June 11th, he hit 70.93m in a pronounced tailwind in Sollentuna.

Vésteinn, now the Head of Elite Sports in his native Iceland, has always marveled at the Big Guy’s propensity to throw well in any conditions. “When I was competing,” he said recently, “I hated throwing in a tailwind. But guys like Daniel, and Virgilius Alekna when he was at his best, throw the same no matter what. I used to wonder why Daniel didn’t throw 75 meters when I got him into meets in California, but the wind never seemed to help him much. I guess that’s why he doesn’t have the world record and Virgilius doesn’t have the World Record. But they have Olympic gold, and that’s something, isn’t it?”

And Daniel, now training with Staffan Jönsson in Malmö, Sweden, seems determined to have a say in who wins the next one.

Photo courtesy of me.

Stand by Me

I’ve been a high school throws coach for thirty years, and I’m still trying to figure out the ideal way to interact with my athletes during competitions. 

There have been rare occasions when one of my kids has made a lousy throw and come to me for advice and I’ve said exactly the right thing.

 “Get off your left!” or “Run away from the disc!” 

They’ve followed my suggestion and crushed their next attempt and I’ve walked away wondering if I am in fact the Greatest Coach Ever.

Usually, though, my mid-comp suggestions seem to do more harm than good and I walk away wondering why I didn’t just keep my mouth shut.

A decade ago, I came across a book by Sian Beilock, a cognitive scientist and currently the president of Dartmouth College, titled Choke: What The Secrets of the Brain Reveal About Getting It Right When You Have To. In it, she explains the impediments that keep us humans from performing at our best when we want to the most. After reading Choke, I decided that the best thing I could do for my throwers during meets was–as I’d suspected–to leave them alone. Any spontaneous bits of advice I might throw at them, no matter how well-intentioned, were likely to get them thinking rather than flowing and thus make it more difficult to produce an optimal throw.

But, around the time Choke came out–again, we’re talking maybe ten years ago–I had the opportunity to attend the NCAA Championships, and I noticed that most throwers there spoke with their coaches between every attempt. I saw this again when I traveled to New York for the 2013 Adidas Grand Prix meet and watched Sandra Perković interact with her coach, Edis Elkasević. As with the NCAA throwers, Sandra checked in with Edis after every throw. Once, she had to just about steamroll an official who tried to prevent her from crossing the track to reach Edis. The official wisely backed down, and Sandra ended up throwing 68.48m that day. Later in the season, she won a World title to go with the Olympic gold she’d captured in 2012, so it seemed like she had a pretty good idea of how to “get it right” when it counted most.

This confused me.

On the one hand, Sian Beilock presented a compelling case against giving an athlete technical advice during a comp. On the other hand, Sandra Perković was ready to truck an official if she had to in order to confer with her coach between attempts. So, was there an ideal way to interact with athletes as they competed? Should I leave mine alone? Or should I talk to them between every attempt? And if I do, is there a certain kind of advice or way of delivering advice that works best?

I thought about these questions again last month at the 2023 USATF LA Grand Prix. As you may have heard, that Ryan Crouser fella had a pretty good day in LA. He came in wanting to break Randy Barnes’ Ducky Drake Stadium record of 23.12m, set in 1990, which had also been the World Record until Ryan went 23.37m at the 2021 Olympic Trials, and he ended up doing much more.

Ryan had been experimenting with his technique a bit over the past few months, and he was certainly not attempting to peak in May with the World Championships three months away, but remarkably, he’s at a level where knocking off Barnes’ stadium record seemed like a reasonable early-season goal in spite of the fact that only three humans–Ryan, Barnes, and Joe Kovacs–had ever thrown that far.

As warmups for the shot played out on a beautiful LA afternoon at the Ducky, I noticed that Mitch Crouser, Ryan’s father and coach, was present, and that Ryan ambled over to speak with him regularly.

I really wanted to eavesdrop on their conversation to get some insight into how Mitch interacted with Ryan during the comp, but politeness dictated that I keep my distance.

Mitch and Ryan discuss. Photo courtesy of an unidentified stalker.

The one comment I heard clearly was by Ryan after he took out Barnes’ record on his first attempt with a 23.23m bomb from a static start.

“Well,” he said as he approached his father near the stands along the right foul line. “I just did everything wrong that I’ve been working on in practice.”

Whatever corrections he and Mitch made seemed to work, as Ryan improved to 23.31m on his next attempt, which got folks wondering if he might just bang one off the wall at the back of the landing pit–a distance of 24 meters.

He fell off a bit in round three with a pedestrian 22.94m, after which he and Mitch again conferred.

Then Ryan got back in the ring and launched a new World Record of 23.56m. Funny thing, the laser had it at 23.58m, but apparently World Records still have to be measured Amish-style with a steel tape, and that knocked off two centimeters.

A photo showing the distance between Ryan’s new World Record toss and the wall at the back of the shot put landing pit courtesy of UCLA throws coach Sean Denard.

Either way, it was an historic performance, and I was dying to get Mitch’s take on it, particularly regarding his interactions with Ryan during the comp.

He graciously agreed to a phone call a few days later, and one thing he emphasized right away was that he and Ryan do not have a typical coach/athlete relationship. 

“I started coaching Ryan when he was in grade school,” Mitch explained. “Then all the way through junior high and high school. And when he was looking at where to go to college, that was part of the equation. Wherever Ryan ended up, they had to be comfortable with me being involved.”

Believe it or not, that was a dealbreaker for some programs, but the Texas staff agreed, and during his time in Austin, Ryan would regularly send Mitch videos of his practice throws.

“Then, when Ryan moved to the Training Center at Chula Vista, he worked with Mac Wilkins, and I know Mac really well, so I’d go there and work with Ryan for maybe a week at a time.”

Bottom line, being Ryan’s father and coaching him for something like two decades has given Mitch what he terms a “deeper understanding” of Ryan than most coaches have of their athletes.

Another unique aspect of coaching Ryan is that, in addition to his remarkable talent, he has developed his own thorough understanding of the event and what he needs to do to make the shot go far. Actually, “understanding” is probably not the right word. For sure, Ryan is a dedicated student of the sport, but it’s his feel of what works and what doesn’t that sets him apart.

“The great throwers,” says Mitch, “each have their super power. For Joe, it’s his strength. With Tom Walsh, it’s his incredible speed. But for Ryan, it’s his instant recall of the feel of every throw. Because of his ability to feel what went right and what went wrong with each attempt, and because we’ve worked together for so long, at meets I’m more of a sounding board for him than anything else.”

There was a time earlier in Ryan’s career when Mitch found himself offering Ryan different bits of advice during competitions, but that is no longer the case. 

“With so many distractions at big meets, it’s not a good idea to say too much. Sometimes, I’ll suggest one simple cue, which can be valuable because it can help focus you and, if it’s the right cue, it can fix so many other things. But Ryan is to the point now where there aren’t usually a lot of things to fix.”

According to Mitch, Ryan’s comment after the 23.23m opener was indicative of this. “Five years ago, if he felt like a throw was way off, it probably was. But now, his technique is so stable that if one little thing is off it might feel like a lot to him, but it can still be a pretty good throw.”

One change they made after the 23.23m was for Ryan to switch immediately to full “Crouser slide” mode, or as Mitch calls it his “step across” technique.

“Our plan going in was to take two or three throws with a static start, but after his opener we jumped right to using the step across. He’d never fully clicked with it in a meet, but after he went 23.31m he told me it felt good and there was more there.”

On the 23.56m, Ryan knew he was in business as soon as he shifted left. It was the same feeling he’d had on his first World Record in Eugene in 2021.

The aspect of Ryan’s development that Mitch seems most proud of is his ability to produce big throws during competitions. “In college,” he says, “Ryan couldn’t do that. He’d have big practice throws, then throw poorly in a meet. It’s taken him a long time to develop the skill of throwing his best in competition.”

One key has been endless hours spent building stability in his technique. Now, according to Mitch, Ryan will sometimes put a cone at 20 meters and “drop a dozen throws on it.” 

As to the future, Mitch refers to the current situation in the men’s shot as a “perfect storm.” 

“Joe, Tom, or Ryan by themselves probably wouldn’t have pushed the event to the level they have. But together, they’ve made 23 meters like 22 meters used to be. I wonder if ten years from now, people will look back on this time and be amazed.”

That seems likely. In the meantime, it seems the key to knowing what to say to an athlete during a competition is to build a relationship with them that allows you to give them what they need, whether that be a simple cue or just a sympathetic ear.

A Shameless Plug

Full disclosure, I have a selfish reason for rooting for Daniel Ståhl. My friend Roger Einbecker and I have collaborated with Vésteinn on a book about the Big Man’s career from the time they started working together through the Olympic triumph in 2021.

A possible cover for our upcoming book.

Daniel is a remarkable dude, and I think throws fans and sports fans in general will enjoy this inside look at one athlete’s path to the top of his sport. We hope to make it available soon as both an ebook and book book.

Stay tuned!

Reflections on the Men’s Shot Put Comp at the 2022 USATF Indoor Championships

The Slow Squeeze

I’ve never wrestled an anaconda, but I imagine it’s similar to competing against Ryan Crouser–you go in with very little chance of winning and come out feeling thoroughly pulverized.

And like an anaconda, Crouser takes his time pulping you. With Ryan, it is a very deliberate process that begins during warmups. At the recent USATF Indoor Championships in Spokane, he started with an easy, walking stand throw, followed by a regular non-reverse stand and a half-speed, non-reverse full that plopped down on the twenty-meter line.

He began his next full with a static start, and dropped that one around twenty-one meters. Another full from a static start went 21.50m. He used a longer windup only on his final two warmups. One reached 21.75m, the other 22.00m.

Notice a pattern there? We’ve all seen throwers blast away during warmups, desperate to build confidence by launching bombs. As Olympic champion (twice) and current world record holder, Crouser is long past the confidence-building stage, so he uses warmups to…warm up. In Spokane, he slowly and precisely increased the amount of effort he put into each attempt, staying under control and refusing to be rushed. He seemed assured that the big throws would come if he just maintained his rhythm, and he was right.

Throwing last in the order, Crouser began applying the death squeeze with a toss of 22.03m from a static start. He missfired on his second attempt and walked out the front. Then, sticking with the static start in round three, he went 22.34m, to essentially put the top spot out of reach.

Those, by the way, were the164th and 165th throws over twenty-two meters in Ryan’s career. To put that in perspective, John Godina, a four-time World Champion and the best putter in the business from 1995 to 2005, threw twenty-two meters exactly three times. Ever.

Oh, and Crouser is not yet thirty years old.

One might think that the folks running the meet there in Spokane would have made it a priority to keep the momentum rolling considering they had the world record holder putting on a show center stage, but alas, other, inexplicable considerations took precedence and the shot comp was paused for fifteen minutes.

When festivities resumed, Crouser set about asphyxiating any remaining hopes of an upset.

He later said that after his first three attempts he decided to stop “dancing around” and so began using his full windup. The result was a 22.51m toss, the fifth time in his career that he surpassed seventy-three feet.

He followed that up with 23.39m and a foul.

When it was over, one question remained. Even in this current Golden Age of shot putting, with its proliferation of twenty-two-meter throwers, can Crouser, barring injury, be beaten?

What if, for example, a competitor dropped a monster throw early, and instead of leading by half-a-meter or more from the get go, Crouser had to play catch up? Would that knock him off his game?

Well, at the 2019 Worlds, you may recall that Tom Walsh opened with a meeting record 22.90m, which Joe Kovacs surpassed by a centimeter in round six. Minutes later, Crouser stepped in for his final attempt. The result? A 22.90m PB.

He didn’t win that night, but he showed that he can take a punch and not get rattled.

And he is a significantly better and more consistent shot putter now than he was three years ago in Doha.

Walsh and Kovacs will no doubt be in Eugene this summer for a Worlds rematch. Walsh has reportedly separated from his longtime coach, Dale Stevenson, and it remains to be seen how that will affect his season. Joe, has been holed up in Nashville (his wife and coach, Ashley, works at Vanderbilt), apparently plotting his title defense…

Maggie Ewen, certainly an astute judge of throwing potential, told me back in 2019 that Darrell Hill (more about him below) has as much talent as Crouser or Kovacs. After a difficult, injury-plagued 2021 season, can he get it together and challenge Crouser? Can any of these guys?

Time will tell, but one thing is for sure. There has never been a better moment to be a shot put fan.

Confidence Men

If you are looking for a doable challenge, I’d recommend trying something easy like becoming an astronaut or breaking the world hotdog eating record (seventy-six in ten minutes) before taking a whack at making a US Olympic or Worlds team in the men’s shot.

Right now, nine of the top twenty male putters in the World Athletics rankings throw for the United States, and that does not include defending World Champion and Olympic silver medalist Joe Kovacs, who has yet to compete this season.

Even with the United States likely to be granted four spots in the men’s shot at the 2022 Worlds, at least six of the planet’s best putters who happen to be American will be stuck watching from home when the new World shot put champion is crowned on July 17th.

A quick word on the number of entries for Worlds. In individual events, a nation is allowed to send three athletes who have met the World Athletics entry standards–four if an athlete from that country has received a bye. The defending World champion gets one. That’s Joe. The current Diamond League champion gets one. That’s Crouser. However, even with both of those guys receiving byes, no country can send more than four competitors in an individual event, so the US Championships will basically come down to a battle for the remaining two spots. If somehow Joe or Crouser were to finish out of the top four at those Championships, then…I don’t know what the hell happens because the USATF places a premium on order of finish at the National Championships in selecting the team. Stay tuned.

However you slice it, making the Worlds team for the US will be at least seventy-seven hotdogs hard, which is why few would blame Josh Awotunde for taking advantage of his dual citizenship (US/Nigeria) to avoid the process altogether–especially after a PB toss of 21.84m at last summer’s Olympic Trials left him in fifth place and off the squad for Tokyo.

But, speaking a few days prior to the US indoor Championships last month, Josh said he was determined to represent the US on the world stage.

He called the idea of making the team for Indoor Worlds a “dream come true” and added that he wanted nothing more than to compete in an Olympics or Worlds wearing the “red white and blue.”

He made that dream a reality in Spokane by dropping an indoor PB of 21.74m in round two. That throw held up for second place, and a similar toss in Belgrade might put him in line for his first World Championship medal.

Roger Steen finished four places behind Josh at the Trials, despite producing a PB of 20.41m. Considering that he was twenty-nine years old and finished the season ranked number fifty-two by World Athletics (with sixteen Americans rated ahead of him) the sensible move after last summer would probably have been to take a bow, call it a career, and walk away satisfied with the fact that it was a huge accomplishment for a former DIII athlete to place in the top ten at one of the greatest shot put competitions ever.

But Roger chose to soldier on, and for five rounds in Spokane (19.55m, two fouls around 20.00m, 20.04m, 20.33m) it seemed not to have been such a good decision. He resembled a stubby Don Quixote tilting at windmill-sized competitors like Crouser, Payton Otterdahl, and Darrell Hill.

Then, on his final attempt, Roger Steen, former University of Wisconsin Eau-Claire “Blugold” (don’t ask), joined the world of bigtime shot putters with his first ever twenty-one meter toss.

That throw–21.07m to be exact–didn’t get him on the squad for Indoor Worlds (he finished third in Spokane, and only the top two make the team), and he’ll have to add nearly a meter to it at the Outdoor Championships to give himself a chance to make the podium there, but…Roger Steen believes. When asked after the comp how he plans to get in the mix outdoors, he replied that he just needs to “keep doing what we’re doing.”

Windmills, beware.

Fair is Foul

The rotational technique has revolutionized shot putting, and also made life more complicated for officials. When a glider reverses at the end of a throw, they generally land with their right foot flat on the ground against the toeboard. If they foul, it is usually because they lose their balance and have to step over the toeboard and out of the ring to regain it. Easy to see and easy to call. Rotational putters, on the other hand, typically land high on the ball of the right foot after reversing, then hop around a bit as they struggle to manage the rotational forces they’ve created. As they do, it is not uncommon for the bottom the their right foot to make contact with the toeboard. As long as their foot touches only the side and not the top of the toeboard, a foul should not be called.

Easy to explain, but difficult to discern in real time with the naked eye. And every once in a while, an official–perhaps struggling with the pressure to make an accurate call–will start assessing fouls that appear to exist only in their imagination.

Tom Walsh’s experience during the qualification round in Tokyo comes to mind. The official watching the toeboard flagged him on two of his three attempts, though he clearly had not fouled. Fortunately, throwers are allowed to protest questionable calls, and Tom’s third throw was declared legal after video review. That toss got him into the final, where he finished with the bronze medal.

Darrell Hill had a similar experience in Spokane, minus the happy ending. After finishing fourth at the Trials last summer, he came into Spokane on Sunday looking to re-establish himself as a top contender for Eugene 2022 as Maggie Ewen and Chase Ealey had done in the women’s shot the previous day.

And he looked strong during the first three rounds, approaching twenty-two meters on his second attempt.

Unfortunately, all three of Darrell’s efforts were deemed fouls, with the official apparently dinging him for touching the top of the toeboard with his heel.

Darrell protested after his third throw, but the officials had trouble getting the replay to function.

In the meantime, they granted him an additional attempt, which was measured as 20.93m. Had it counted, that throw would have allowed Darrell to continue in rounds four, five, and six, but a moment later an official informed him that they were finally able to examine the replay of his third attempt and that the foul call would stand.

That had to be extremely disappointing for Darrell, but one thing he can take away from the experience is that he is in twenty-two meter form with several months of training still ahead before the Outdoor Nationals.

I remember covering the Prefontaine Classic in June of 2019, and watching Joe Kovacs launch twenty-two meter throws in warmups (Joe takes a very different approach to warming up than does Crouser).His best toss in the competition was 21.39m, but he told me afterwards that he was encouraged by the capacity he showed in being able to move the ball far with the Doha Worlds still months away.

Things turned out pretty well for Joe that year, and they just might for Darrell this time around.

Back on the horse: A 2022 USATF Indoor Championships Women’s Shot Recap

I showed up grouchy for day one of the 2022 USATF Indoor Championships last Saturday, and who could blame me? Even in this newfangled age of jet airliners and such, my trip from Chicago to Spokane on Friday was a solid ten-hour journey door-to-door, half of which saw me wedged into seats designed to punish a guy for being tall and old.

Then, on Saturday morning I got confused about the route I should take walking from my hotel to the Podium–the newly constructed site of these championships.

I could actually see the Podium sitting on a hill off in the distance as I exited the hotel, but the Google lady in my phone had me go in a different direction at the end of every block, Pac-Man style, instead of following a straight line from point A to point B.

I finally made my way across the Spokane River…

…and through a park to the Podium…

…which I have to admit, is a nice looking facility.

At that point, however, I was in no mood to swoon over aesthetics. What a grouchy man wants on a Saturday morning in late February is to see some top notch shot putting, and lucky for me, there was plenty on hand at this US Championships.

Maggie Ewen, who arrived in Spokane with a season’s best of 19.03m, made the money I spent on those twelve-dollar airport beers seem entirely worthwhile when she opened with a 19.50m toss and then followed it in round two with a 19.79m PB.

As you may recall, Maggie’s 2021 season began and ended quite well. She tossed an indoor PB of 19.54m that February, and won the Diamond League final with an outdoor season’s best of 19.41m in September.

The middle part, though, was rough. After just missing the podium at the 2019 Worlds, Maggie was considered a legit medal contender for the Tokyo Olympic Games, but a subpar day at the Trials cost her a spot on the team.

That’s a devastating experience for a track and field athlete. Members of a Super Bowl contender that gets upset in the playoffs can look forward to taking another crack at it the following year, but as we know, the Olympics doesn’t happen every year. For Maggie and anyone else who came up short at the Trials, the fact that the 2024 Games was “only” three years away must have been of little solace.

But Maggie and her coach, Kyle Long, vowed to make good use of the final weeks of the 2021 season. They set about adjusting her entry to achieve maximum smoothness, and those adjustments paid off with her Diamond League final win, which provides her with an automatic entry into the 2022 Worlds.

This winter, Maggie and Kyle picked up where they’d left off in terms of technical focus, and she felt good coming into this comp, although not necessarily 19.79m good. When I spoke to her a few days before Spokane, she said she felt like she was still in an “early” phase of her training and was pleased to see “sporadic” throws around nineteen meters in practice.

If her 19.50m opener was a pleasant surprise, the 19.79m follow-up was something more–maybe a dose of redemption. “Being frank,” she said before the competition, “with not making the Olympic team, it would be really, really good mentally to get back on that horse of feeling like I can make teams, feeling you are that caliber.”

Hopefully, there is room on that horse for Chase Ealey, who earned her own bit of vindication on Saturday with a 19.10m third round toss that put her on the team for Indoor Worlds.

Like Maggie, Chase fell short at the 2021 Trials, then spent the rest of the season trying to resuscitate her flagging confidence. They even travelled together while competing in Europe late last the summer.

Chase and Maggie ended up taking very different paths over the last few months (you can read about Chase’s journey here and Maggie’s here and here) but making the team for Indoor Worlds–which Chase did with a 19.10m toss in round three–must have felt something like this for both of them:

After all the chills and winter blues, 

The staying warm and staying in, 

Meetings indoors for outside is cold, 

Then comes the spring sunshine, 

The sun breaks in like a door open wide

With the burst of sunlight, 

That lasting and warm, 

Bringing smiles back on peoples faces

It is the time for new growth, 

It is the time for new beginnings, 

It is the time for buds to bloom, 

It is the time for nature to sound its sounds of nature again,

Okay, neither of them said that. Those lines are from a poem by Ellen Ni Bheachain called “Spring Sunshine.” You can listen to Chase’s actual comments here, and Maggie’s here. But suffice it to say, both were pretty darn happy.

Another competitor with reason to feel poetic about her performance in Spokane was Jessica Woodard, who smashed an indoor PB of 18.70m to firmly establish herself as a contender for the outdoor World’s team this summer.

That throw came after a break in the action to introduce the athletes after round three, even though they had already been introduced prior to round one. It seemed as if USATF was doing some kind of dementia check. “If the names of these athletes do not sound familiar, please make an appointment with your family physician.”

Whatever the case, Jess shook off the fifteen-minute pause to hit that PB shortly after the comp resumed.

“Thankfully,” she said afterwards, “I was able to stay pretty warm during the delay. I just had a good time talking to the other competitors and doing my best to stay focused.”

Her focus now will turn to fighting for a spot on the team for this summer’s Worlds, to be held in Eugene. That task got a little easier when Maggie received her World Championships bye, which will allow the US to send four women putters to Worlds.

“For the next couple of months,” she told me, “I’ll go back to the lab and get more strength work in. We tapered a little bit for this meet, but not much. I have some timing things I have to work out in terms of technique, and I’ll use the beginning of the outdoor season to get consistent reps. I know I’m close to some nineteen-meter throws.”

The “lab” that Jess referred to is the Desert High Performance group coached by Ryan Whiting in Mesa, Arizona, where she has been training since the summer of 2020,

Jess has a stable job working remotely for a company called Aspen Media, which is owned by a former track athlete. Her job with Aspen gives her enough money to get by and the flexibility she needs to balance work, travel, and training. She says that even though, “saving money is tough when you are working while also having to travel for competitions,” she makes “enough to pay my bills.”

Maggie and Chase will both attest to the importance of settling into a comfortable training environment, and with Jess making steady progress in Mesa, watch out for her this summer.

And keep an eye on Jessica Ramsey as well. Ramsey, who turned in a sensational performance at last summer’s Trials, finished fourth with a best of 18.66m on this day when she simply could not locate her timing. She told me a few days before the meet that her training was going well, but that her focus was on “putting it all together” during the outdoor campaign.

Odds are that she will, and with the addition of Tokyo silver medalist Raven Saunders and fellow 2020 Olympian Adelaide Aquilla–neither of whom competed in Spokane–to the field at the outdoor Championships, the women’s shot there should be a marquis event.

It was easy to look forward to pleasant days ahead as I left the Podium that afternoon feeling exhilarated. Outside the facility, a warm, late winter sun beamed down and the playground in the park below was alive with laughing children.

Spirits restored, I gave the Google lady a break and found my own way back to the hotel.