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.
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