Each month, I’ll touch on some interesting stories in the world of throwing. In this edition, you’ll read about the slick ring debacle at the Tokyo Worlds, the coaching retirement of Andrew Ninow, and the javelin adventures of Sarah Blake. At the end of the piece, I’ve included some of my favorite photos from the past year or two.
Slippery people
A recent article in The Athletic regarding the playing surface at MetLife Stadium quotes 49ers tight end George Kittle thusly:
“No NFL field should be the butt of a joke…Ever. I feel like all fields should have a level of safety to it. I just don’t get why there’s not a standard for, ‘Hey, you gotta pick between one or two turfs.’ There shouldn’t be 12 different turfs and 12 different grass fields. I just think that’s weird because most other sports, it’s not like basketball players play on different hardwood, soccer players in Europe all play on really nice grass. So it’s just weird to me.”
Throwers everywhere feel your pain, George! Someone randomly tuning into the men’s discus comp at the recent World Championships might be forgiven for wondering why the event was being contested on an ice rink. Full respect to Daniel Ståhl, Mykolas Alekna and Alex Rose for keeping their poop together under horrendous conditions in Tokyo, but shouldn’t World Athletics be able to provide a throwing surface that maintains some grippiness in the rain?
Mo Saatara, who has coached Camryn Rogers to Olympic and World hammer gold and co-coached Mykolas Alekana to a European title and six total medals at international championships, told me that while World Athletics does require a certain type of finish on the concrete throwing pads used in the shot, disc, and hammer, they do not take the threat of rain into account. “In dry conditions,” he explained, “the standard World Athletics surface is excellent. But, there’s not a lot of texture to it, so when it rains, it gets slippery.”
John Smith, coach of several Olympic and World Championship finalists and approximately one jillion NCAA medalists, says it is not difficult to construct a pad that works in all conditions if you follow these steps:
- Trowel the freshly poured concrete until it is shiny like a garage floor.
- Let it cure for 2-3 weeks.
- Mix 1 gallon of muriatic acid with 4 gallons of water.
- Pour the acid/water mixture onto the concrete.
- Let it sit for 45 seconds.
- Wash it off.
That process, he says, will result in a slightly pitted surface that “is fast but still works in wet weather.”
It would be nice if World Athletics were to take that kind of care in the construction of throwing rings, but in the meantime, Saatara and Smith agree that athletes must prepare for lousy conditions by training in the rain.
The facility at the pre-Worlds camp for Canadian athletes featured a ring exactly like those in Japan National Stadium, and Mo had Rogers take some throws during a storm so they’d be ready for any eventuality in the actual comp.
Smith recalled nightmare conditions during women’s discus qualification at the 1988 Olympic Trials.
“It was pouring so bad, they took the men’s long jump inside, but they let the women’s discus go on. Luckily, it had been raining a lot where we practiced in Indiana, so we were ready.”
Smith’s future wife, Connie Price, was able to get off one decent attempt out of three, but that was enough to put her in the final, which she ended up winning.
Saatara and Smith insist their athletes show up to comps prepared with shoes that will give them the best chance of maintaining their footing in a slick ring.
Rogers is a Nike athlete who, according to Mo, prefers to throw in SDs “rain or shine,” and always travels with a newer pair that provide optimum grip.
Smith calls the Puma model from the 1970s the best throwing shoe he’s ever seen, but as they went the way of the leisure suit, he has his athletes try different models of currently available brands so they are ready for anything. The Velaasa Stones, for example, are considered a good bet on a slippery surface.
There is another factor here that, according to Smith, can determine an athlete’s ability to stay upright on a rainy day—bodyweight.
“Keep in mind,” he says, “that semi-trucks handle ice better than regular cars. So the heavier the guy, the more grip they have.”
As if throwers needed another reason to shovel it in at mealtime.
A whole new world
One of the top throws performances of 2025 came from Ralford Mullings, who launched an NCAA Championships record 69.31m while denying the heavily-favored Mykolas Alekna his first collegiate title. Those two will go head-to-head once again at next year’s NCAAs, each under the care of a new coach.
After a sensational career under Mo Saatara at Cal, Mykolas has transferred to Oregon where he will be mentored in 2026 by Brian Blutreich. Ralford will remain at Oklahoma, but his coach there for the past two years, Andrew Ninow, has left the business with Pat Ebel coming over from Auburn to replace him.
For better or worse, both of these situations reflect the current state of NCAA sports.
The “better” part involves Mykolas, who was able to take advantage of modern transfer and athlete compensation rules to negotiate an undisclosed sum from Oregon’s NIL collective. It’s not easy making a living as a professional discus thrower, even when you’re the World Record holder, and it might make a big difference in his life if he can begin his post-collegiate career this summer with an advanced degree and money in the bank.
The “worse” part involves coach Ninow, one of the bright lights among American throws coaches, who felt he could not stay in a profession that offers little or no security to him and his family.
Certainly, coaching in the NCAA has never been a stable way to make a buck. Head coaches in all sports have been subject to dismissal based on their won/lost records, and when a head coach is axed their assistants generally get the boot as well.
But the situation has been made markedly worse now that a new and incredibly expensive arms race has broken out among top football and basketball schools. In order to lure the best coaches in those sports, schools have been offering massive salaries. In order to lure the best athletes, schools have been pouring millions of dollars into upgraded facilities.
This has encouraged athletic departments to claw back some of the money they’d previously devoted to non-revenue sports. And it’s not only roster sizes and travel budgets that have shrunk. So has the amount of patience afforded to coaches of those sports who, in the past, might have been valued for their contribution to the educational mission of their school.
Take, for example, Gary Wienecke, who served as head coach of the men’s track and cross country programs at the University of Illinois for thirty-six years without winning an NCAA title. According to the U of I web page, Wieneke’s best seasons were from “1985-95 when the Illini placed in the top three 20 times in 22 Big Ten meets.”
Because he ran a clean, competitive program that reflected well on the university, Wienecke was a revered figure at U of I. But today, when money invested in sports is meant to produce conference and national championships, it’s hard to imagine a coach with Wienecke’s record keeping his job for the long haul.
Coach Ninow read the writing on the wall, and did not like the message.
“These days,” he said when we spoke last fall, “there’s no security in your position no matter how well the athletes in your events do. If the head coach gets fired, you’re gone as well, and then you’re at the mercy of what’s available, which can mean uprooting your family and moving across the country for a job that’s no more secure than the one you left.”
He described working for Oklahoma head coach James Thomas as “amazing” but says he’s “not getting a sense that Olympic sports are a priority” these days.
Ninow and his wife love living in Norman with their two children, and couldn’t face the idea of having to uproot them because of a coaching shakeup that could come at any time.
So, in spite of the fact that he’d have another year coaching the NCAA champion, Ninow decided to resign his position and take a job at a non-profit that works with the University to raise money for the College of Engineering.
Breaking the news to his throwing squad wasn’t easy, but Ninow says that “one common thread with all my recruits is that they are good character people, family people, and I explained to them it had nothing to do with them or with OU or the head coach. Making the change was the right thing to do as a dad. They know my wife and kids, and even though it was not an easy thing to swallow, they were able to understand it was the right move.”
As for Mullings, Coach Ninow believes he’ll do just fine under Ebel. “Ralford and I have done some unique things technically,” he said, “but Ralford is a smart guy and Ebel is a great coach. And I’ll be around to give guidance if they ever need it.”
As to the future of track and field in the NCAA, Ninow fears that the “business mindset” has carried over from football and basketball. “The difference,” he says, “is that those guys make a lot of money. If universities want to retain coaches in the non-revenue sports, coaches who are wired for family and mentorship, who support the ideals of the university, they need to make it doable.”
Breakthrough
When Sarah Blake was in high school, someone spotted her playing baseball against boys and told the track coach she had “a hell of an arm.” The track coach then convinced her to give javelining a try. It was the beginning of a long and often tortured romance with the event.
World Athletics profiles include a “progression” page which traces the athlete’s PBs chronologically. A javelin thrower’s “progression” often includes peaks, valleys, and mysteriously missing years. Sarah’s is no exception.
She graduated high school in 2015 with a PB of 41.72. During her second season at the University of Kentucky, she reached 53.12m. Her SB in 2018 dropped to 44.08m, then jumped up to 52.73m in 2019 after she’d transferred to Mississippi State. Covid knocked out her 2020 season, injury her 2022 season, and she finished 2023 with an SB of 48.22m. Finally, in 2024 she produced her first PB in seven years, a 57.63m effort at the American JavFest.
Such is the life of the javelin thrower, one that Sarah admits you have to be “a little crazy” to embrace.
“Sometimes,” she said when we spoke
last fall, “we go years without having a
personal best. Then, out of nowhere
something connects.“
“I guess it’s because the jav is so technical. You can do one thing right, then the next throw you do something else right but lose whatever you’d just done well.”
And then there are the injuries.
“The javelin is so violent,” she says, “that you can literally injure anything in your body.” Sarah herself has had surgery once on her shoulder and twice on her elbow. A training partner recently tore his Achilles.
One reason she has been able to compete post-collegiately is that her job as a physical therapy tech provides Sarah with access to free treatment.
Another is her friendship with Curtis Thompson.
Curtis was competing for Mississippi State when Sarah arrived, and they’ve trained together ever since. As fellow Bulldogs, they were mentored by April Thomas. Later, both worked under Tom Pukstys. Now, they coach, support, and cheer vociferously for each other.
“Curtis,” she says, “is one of the most supportive people to me. For the past two years, he kept me throwing even when I doubted myself.”
In 2025, Thomson sat ringside while Sarah took third at the US Championships. It was a perfect javelin moment, featuring triumph and mayhem.
Blake was sitting in fifth place after four attempts when Thompson told her she needed to carry more speed into her next throw and suggested she do a practice runup off to the side. When Sarah picked up her tempo on that practice run, she caught a spike in the track surface and bit the dust. Hard.
The announcer had shushed the crowd at that end of the field prior to the start of an 800 heat, and Blake says that “everyone could hear it when I smacked the ground.”
It was, she recalls, “one of the most embarrassing things that could happen.”
Also one of the most painful, as she broke her left wrist.
Such an injury might have ended the comp for a normal athlete, but javelin throwers are made of stern stuff.
Instead of withdrawing, Sarah got up and
threw a season’s best 55.80m.
Afterwards, she informed Curtis that the broken wrist was all his fault.
“Well,” he replied. “At least you ran faster.”
Earlier that day, Thompson had snagged his fifth US title. Six weeks later, he took the bronze medal in Tokyo, a development which shocked just about everyone except Blake, who for several months had witnessed a new level of consistency from her training partner.
“Curt,” she recalls, “was hammering out 80-meter training throws even from a short approach, so we realized early on that something really good was going to come out of this year. When he PB’d in his first meet, it matched up with how he’d been doing in practice.”
Blake says the consistency in training gave Thompson the confidence he needed to finally reach the podium at an international championships and to, in her words, “write history for US jav throwing.”
Thompson’s story will have a new chapter in 2026, as will Blake’s. Both will continue training and competing while working to support themselves. Eventually, Sarah says she’ll hang up the spikes and work as a strength coach, ideally for an NFL team. “I, look forward,” she says, “to being the person having a ball yelling at the men telling them to lift.”
Some favorite photos
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