Probably the coolest part of the men’s shot competition was meeting some of the throwers in the hotel lobby the night before.

That’s Peter in the  middle surrounded by an awful lot of shotputting firepower: Former NCAA champ Cory Martin, fourth-place Olympic Trials finisher Joe Kovacs, two-time Olympic Champion Tomasz Majewski, and World Indoor Champion Ryan Whiting.

They are all good guys, and it was fun chatting with them. Cory said he is training and working as a volunteer jumps coach at Indiana University. He hopes to become a full time college coach some day, so he is trying to get some experience in events other than the throws. He was really optimistic about this season, as he said he is feeling totally healthy for the first time in a couple of years.

Joe is training with Art Venegas at the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista. I last spoke with him a year ago during the NCAA meet in Des Moines, and at that time he was not sure about continuing his career post-collegiately. But that was before his sensational performance at the trials where he launched a 21.08 bomb and came within 20 centimeters of making the Olympic team. He is very happy with the setup in Chula Vista, and seems likely to contend for a spot on this summer’s World Championship team, especially with Reese Hoffa receiving a bye for winning the 2012 Diamond League shotput competition.

Majewski is a giant, and luckily for mankind seems to be quite friendly.

Whiting has been without a doubt the best shotputter in the world so far this season. He has accumulated tons of international experience over the past few years, and it has given him great confidence. The only thing that might slow him down for a couple of weeks this summer is the imminent birth of his first child.

We also ran into European indoor champion Asmir Kolasinac of Serbia. Here he is with Peter:

All in all, it was a pretty solid linup of putters.

http://www.diamondleague-newyork.com/Live-StartlistsResults/Overview/Mens-Shot-Put/

Unfortunately, it rained like crazy throughout the warmup and competition. These guys are pros, and nobody lost control running the ring, but it had to make it hard to really let loose. Also, the landing area was covered with fresh, thick turf and the shots just about disappeared upon landing. All the guys were forced to spend an inordinate amount of time cleaning and drying the shots between throws.

Here are a bunch of photos from warmups that Peter took from the grandstand.

This is Cory Martin performing a step-around drill:

Here’s Kolasinac:

Here’s Majewski performing a fixed feet glide:

Here’s Joe Kovacs getting out of the back:

Here’s Dylan Armstrong:

Whiting:

Hoffa:

Rodhe:

Martin:

And here are some videos:

Armstrong-

Cory-Martin

Hoffa-best

Kovacs

Tomas

Whiting

Hope you enjoy the photos and vids. Should be a fantastic summer of competetion in the shot. For Whiting to throw 21.27 in those conditions? Amazing. And you know Majewski will be there when it counts in Moscow.

Stay tuned.

by Dan McQuaid

this article originally appeared on the Illinois Track & Cross Country Coaches Association website on May 31, 2013

WOMEN’S JAVELIN

So, as the women’s discus ended, the javelin throwers began warming up and I’m pretty sure the temperature dropped even more. Here is a clip of me down by the javelin runway trying not to die of hypothermia:

At the javelin runway

For some reason I refer to the measuring system as the “timing system” and Icahn Stadium as “Randall Stadium” but I defy anyone as cold as I was to make sense when talking into an I-phone.

It was a great field of throwers…

http://www.diamondleague-newyork.com/Live-StartlistsResults/Overview/Womens-Javelin-Throw/

…but how anybody got loose enough to sprint into their throw is beyond me.

My favorite thrower was Martina Ratej of Slovenia. Here she is:

The reason I liked her so much is that her coach gave her an animated pep talk between every throw, but her expression never changed. She opened with a season-best 60.51, and I guess her coach figured that he could berate her into an even greater effort. I do not speak Slavic, but based on his tone and his body language, he seemed to be saying, “You are throwing like a wuss and that is making me look bad!” But she totally ignored him.

My other favorite thrower was Christina Obergfoll, if for no other reason than that I love Germany, and that when I spoke to her after the competition she dropped an f-bomb when talking about the weather conditions. Here she is:

Here are vids of some of the throws. I apologize to you jav fans out there for my less-than-excellent camera work, but I had two factors working against me. One, I could not feel my fingers. Two, javelin throwers have the annoying habit of running away from you as you try to film them.

Hjalmsdottir

Abakumova

Obergfoll

As you can see from the results, Obergfoll came through with a pretty decent 65.33 for the win. She’ll be competing in Eugene this coming weekend, and I anticipate a nice effort out of her as even the unpredictable and occasionally maddening Eugene weather should seem luxurious after what she fought through on Saturday.

by Dan McQuaid

this article originally appeared on the Illinois Track & Cross Country Coaches Association website on May 30, 2013

My friend, Pete Trofimuk, and I headed to New York this weekend to take in the Adidas Grand Prix Diamond League meet. Here is our report.

The women’s discus was scheduled for 9:00am, so we left the Hotel Jolly Madison around 7:15.(I know that’s a weird name for a hotel, and I wasn’t sure what to expect when my wife booked us there, but it’s totally legit–a great location and a very helpful staff. The elevator made a funny creaking noise, but that just made riding to the tenth floor more interesting.) After walking three blocks to Grand Central Station, we jumped on a number 6 train heading uptown. Even on that short walk, it was readily apparent that the weather was going to be an issue. We got pelted the entire way by a cold, steady rain while gusts of wind threatened to yank the umbrella out of my hand. It was a little slice of November that somehow showed up in late May, the kind of weather that made you want to hunker down in your hotel room and whine like a little girl. Luckily, Pete and I are built of sterner stuff, so we just whined while we walked.

We got off the subway at 103rd street and made our way to the East River where a pedestrian bridge arches up and over to Randall’s Island, home to jogging paths, ball fields, a large structure that looks like an old hospital, and Icahn Stadium where the track meet was to be held. On a normal May day, I would highly recommend taking this route to Randall’s. You can see from this picture that the pedestrian bridge offers some potentially awesome views of the city. On this particular day, it was a bit uncomfortable being exposed to the elements way up on that bridge, but manly men that we are, we soldiered on.

After crossing the bridge, it’s about a one-mile walk to Icahn. Here we are upon arrival:

Arriving at Icahn

We got into the stadium just as the discus warmups were beginning, and I was able to make my way to a spot just across the track from the cage. This was my view:

Notice the cameraman behind the cage looking like an eskimo?

I was amazed at how well the throwers were able to control the discus on their warmup throws. I don’t recall seeing one end-over-ender or cage shot in spite of the cold and rain. Then again, this was a solid field.

http://www.diamondleague-newyork.com/Live-StartlistsResults/Overview/Womens-Discus-Throw/

Glanc, Lewis-Smallwood, Randall, Robert-Michon, and Thurmond have all been Olympians, and Perkovic, of course, won the London games with a sensational 69-meter performance.

I had seen Perkovic compete here in New York in 2010 when she was just starting to make her presence felt on the international circuit, and I remember being impressed by her vitality. It was hot and humid on that day, and the air was pretty heavy, but she did not give a rip. She got in that ring and banged, barely fouling a 65-meter throw before winning with 61-something.

And this day would be no different. In spite of the presence of the fine throwers listed above, this was to be a battle between Mother Nature and Force of Nature. Throughout the competition, I had the good fortune of standing next to Perkovic’s coach and boyfriend, the former NCAA shotput champ from Auburn, Edis Elkasevic, and though I do not speak Croatian, I could tell from their interactions that Sondra had arrived in New York ready to rumble. She seemed concerned about the slickness of the wet ring, and she did not launch any monster warmup throws, but as the competition was about to begin she exhanged a fist bump with Edis, turned, sang herself part of a song, let rip with a “Whoop! Whoop!”, and then marched off towards the cage ready to kick some ass.

Which she did, in a rather amazing fashion.

The early highlight of the first round was a 61.86 toss by Lewis-Smallwood, which, given the conditions, was a pretty nice throw.

Lewis-Smallwood

Then Perkovic went to work.

Perkovic Round-1 64.00

The previous meet record was 63.97, set by Stephanie Brown Trafton in 2009. Throwing last in the first round, Perkovic etched her name in the record book with a toss of 64.00. She was clearly jacked by that solid opener, and looked more than capable of adding on to her new record when, two throws into the second round, the competition was halted due to a glitch with the automated measuring device. As the delay dragged on, I had a nice chat with Edis, who told me that he and Sondra had met when he returned to Croatia after graduating from Auburn and began coaching a club team in Zagreb. Edis’s team shared facilities with the club to which Sondra belonged, and one thing led to another. He said that she comes from a pretty tough background, and is fiercely competitive. The results from last week’s competition in Wiesbaden where China’s Gu Siyu went 67.86 had gotten her attention, and she arrived in New York determined to strike back.

Now, after that promising start, she was forced to “chill out” literally and figuratively while officials tinkered with the measuring device. Needless to say, she was not happy about the delay, and she came over to the fence several times and engaged in spirited conversations with Edis. Afterwards, she revealed that they had considered retiring from the competition rather than risking injury by getting back into that wet ring. They decided to stick it out, however, and she killed time by dancing, singing, and fashioning a skirt out of a towel.

When the competition finally resumed after a break of at least 20 minutes, she stepped in and fired a 62.50 then started walking back towards the fence to discuss the situation with Edis. For some reason, one of the officials decided to intercept her. “No, no, you can’t go over there,” he said, motioning for her to return to the throwing area.

She did not even break stride. “Oh, shut up, you!” she said, and dismissed him with a wave of her hand.

Now, I’ve got great respect for the people who sign up to officiate track meets. This guy was out there freezing his nuts off like the rest of us, and I doubt very much he was getting paid. But you’re going to pick that moment–after a 20-minute delay in the bitter cold caused by the incompetence of your fellow officials–to all of a sudden decide that she’s violating some rule by conferring with her coach over whether or not it was safe to continue competing in genuinely wretched conditions?

Well, Perkovic was having none of it, and she blew right past him. Luckily for all parties, the official decided not to press the issue. He went back to his seat next to the cage and Perkovic, after conferring with Edis, stepped in at the end of round three and killed one.

Perkovic Round 3 66.31

After that she smelled blood, and for a time probably got a little too fired up. The officials took forever reordering the throwers for the final three rounds and when Sondra finally got back in the ring she pulled the trigger early and caged it. After some more advice from Edis (as best I could tell he was reminding her not to yank her head through the finish) she looked like she could barely wait to get back in for her fifth throw. Here it is.

Perkovic Round 5 68.48

I’m sure people are wondering about the wind. As I said earlier, I almost lost my umbrella a couple of times on the walk over, so the wind was definitely blowing. Inside the stadium at the ground level, I couldn’t feel it very much, but Peter was sitting on some bleachers that were elevated a bit on the other side of the track from the right foul line, and he felt like the wind was blowing across the sector from right to left. Whatever the case may be, it was certainly not an ideal wind and there is no arguing that 68 meters was a massive throw in those cold, wet conditions.

And Perkovic is immensely entertaining to watch. She reminds me of Adam Nelson in 2000 when it seemed like he could throw 22 meters whenever he wanted to. He was happy, confident, animated. A barbarian warrior slashing his way through the world of shotputting.

Right now, Perkovic is the barbarian princess of the discus. And I mean that as a supreme compliment. Jet lag? Rain? Cold? Delays? A slippery ring? None of that mattered. As Jack Donaghy from 30 Rock would say, she took all those potential distractions and crushed them in her mind vise.

She intentionally fouled a disappointing sixth throw, but it didn’t matter. That 68.48 had sent the message that she wanted to send. The Olympic title was no fluke. Hope you all had a nice time throwing PRs into that world record wind in Weisbaden, but how many of you could throw 68 in this crap?

And she seems to have the perfect partner in Edis. You can tell that she trusts him completely and his calm demeanor seems to be a nice compliment to her passion and volatility. He told me a great story about how he dropped her off at the airport as she headed off to the London Olympics and then found that she’d left an envelope in the car. Inside was a suprise–an airline ticket to London so he could be with her at the games.

We all know how that worked out, and if Saturday was any indication, there will be more golden days ahead for them.

I asked Edis how they would celebrate the big throw. “We will go shopping,” he replied. “I will follow her around and end up carrying many bags.”

Hmm. Maybe they’re not such an unusual couple after all.

by Dan McQuaid

this article originally appeared on the Illinois Track & Cross Country Coaches Association website on May 27, 2013

2010 New York Diamond League

Since 1886, the Statue of Liberty has beckoned the world to “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” and the world has complied. Unfortunately for those of us who love the throws, the world has been much stingier about sending its best tossers to compete on our shores. This summer though, the IAAF has taken pity on us huddled masses of throws fans yearning to see Olympic medalists, and through the creation of the Diamond League has found a way to entice the world’s best throwers to compete on U.S. soil.

Brand spanking new this summer, the Diamond league represents an expansion of the old Golden League format. Fourteen Diamond League competitions are scheduled for this year, in venues as far afield as Eugene and Shanghai. Each meeting offers $450,000 in prize money and the chance for competitors in thirty-two different events (fifteen of which are featured in a given meeting) to accumulate points toward winning a “diamond trophy” and $40,000.

The Adidas NYC Grand Prix Meet, held June 12^th on Randall’s Island a few miles up the East River from Lady Liberty, was the first U.S. meet to receive Diamond League status. The meet organizers chose to host the women’s discus and shotput, along with the men’s javelin,  and based on the number of Olympic and World Championship medalists who showed up to compete, diamonds should now be considered a throwing fan’s best friend.

Women’s Discus

The first throwing event contested on this partly sunny and fully humid afternoon was the women’s discus. The field consisted of six top Americans, most prominently defending Olympic champion Stephanie Brown-Trafton, who set the meet record last year with a toss of 63.97m. Two prominent foreign throwers came to join the diamond hunt: Helsinki bronze-medalist Vera Pospisilova-Checklova, representing the Czech Republic, and nineteen-year-old Croatian sensation Sandra Perkovic, the 2009 European Junior champion who blasted a 66.85m PR early this spring.

A young thrower of great promise, Perkovic helped enliven a competition that otherwise appeared to suffer from the heavy air and lack of a helping wind. Her aggressive style brings to mind some past Eastern European discus greats such as Vladimir Dubrovshchik and Vasily Kaptyukh who eschewed the standard slow-to-fast rhythm in favor of a “start fast then really haul ass” approach. The focus of Perkovic’s technique seems to be generating a lot of speed out of the back with an aggressive swing kick, catching the disc waaaay high in the power position and then knocking the crap out of it with a fixed-feet finish and a ferocious yell. After whanging one of her warmup throws loudly off the right side of the cage, she adjusted her stance at the back of the ring, placing her right foot a bit to the left of the center line and let rip a first-round 61.96m which gave her the early lead over Aretha Thurmond’s 60.99m and Chechlova’s 60.71m. Brown-Trafton, who looked very uncomfortable during warm-ups, opened with 55.67m.

An uneventful second round saw only Chechlova reach the 60-meter line (60.12m), and an even less eventful third round (no 60-meter efforts) was spiced up only by a 59.70m toss from former University of Illinois thrower Gia Lewis (who earlier this season posted a 62.75M PR) and a long, loud Perkovic foul in the 66-meter range.

The throwers were re-ordered after round three with the top six advancing. That left the young Anna Jelmini (in spite of a very respectable third round 58.67m) and the veteran Brown-Trafton (who did not improve on her first round effort) out of the mix. I had a nice chat with Stephanie after the competition, and was struck by her humility and thoughtfulness. She was in a difficult place mentally, and it may be that she has not yet adjusted to the increased expectations created by her Olympic victory. She said that she was throwing great last season but then felt like “a light bulb switched off at the World Championships.”  She finished 12^th in Berlin, and took the setback hard. “I felt like I let my family down,” she told me. “Like I let my country down.” This season, she was admitted to the Project 30 program set up by USATF to funnel financial support to potential 2012 medalists, but the burden of trying to justify that support has weighed heavily on her. “It’s almost like I need to forget about being Olympic Champion,” she commented. “I know the only reason I’m getting into the Diamond League meets is because of my title, not my marks…but I want to get back to that place where I wasn’t thinking about that or about  the money. I have to find a way to succeed in this new chapter. I have to find a way to get back to my comfort zone, or to find a new comfort zone.”

That sense of uneasiness has intruded on her efforts to find a technical groove. When asked which aspect of her technique she was focusing on improving, she replied, “There are so many things!  That’s why I’m a mess right now.” After reflecting for a moment she said that what she most needed to do was to hit a wider power position with more upper body wrap, and that she’d been taking a lot of non-reverse throws as a way of finding that position. Unfortunately, she doesn’t feel like she accelerates the discus well from a non-reverse finish, so it is not likely to provide the long-term answer. “If I can find a way to hit that power position, block, and use my reverse to accelerate the discus, it’s going to go far.”

It will be an interesting summer for Brown-Trafton as she attempts to recapture her Beijing form. In spite of her struggles, though, she remained optimistic. “All these challenges…it’s like yoga. It’s flexing me in ways I never wanted to go, but in the end it’s going to be really good for me.”

The final three rounds of the discus competition brought no fireworks, although Thurmond solidified her hold on second place with a 61.19m effort and Perkovic reached 61.59m in round six. Her 61.96m held up for the win and put her first among women discus throwers in the race for the diamond trophy.

Women’s Shot

Do you have trouble making choices? Me, too. Team Edward or Team Jacob? I still can’t decide! Same with the glide and rotational shot. I love them both, so I was one happy dude watching this competition.  Heading the glide contingent were Natalya Khoroneko-Mikhnevich, the Beijing silver-medalist from Belarus, and New Zealander Valerie Vili, the current Olympic Champion.  Also on the start list was 2009 European Indoor champion, Petra Lammert of Germany who is probably best known for using a glide variation in which she reaches with her right leg out of the back then steps into a wide, short-long style power position. It would have been fun to see that, too, but during warm-ups it became evident that she had switched back to a standard short-long glide. I asked her about the switch after the competition, and she told me that she had suffered a serious elbow injury falling over the toeboard in practice. As she rather charmingly put it, “the radius kaput was outside.” She is still recovering from the resulting surgery, and said that a standard glide puts less stress on her elbow.

Rounding out the field were four Americans: the fine rotational throwers Sarah Stevens and Jill Camarena, and gliders Kristen Heaston and Michelle Carter whose meet record of 18.43m was about to go kaput as well with Mikhnevich, Lammert, and Vili all carrying PRs of over 20 meters. The final thrower in the mix was Cleopatra Borel-Brown from Trinidad.

It was Camarena who first dispatched the record with a round one 18.99m, her spin technique looking very sharp. Her reign as record-holder lasted approximately two minutes though, as Mikhnevich managed a 19.51m opener. Mikhnevich held the lead and the record until the end of round two when Vili took custody of both by hitting 19.93m.

The Belarussian took a run at Vili with a third round season best toss of 19.80m, but that is as close as anyone would get. Vili, if not exactly in top form, showed great consistency with her final three throws of 19.81m, 19.88m, and 19.82m. Camarena’s 18.99m held up for third.

After my previous conversation with Brown-Trafton, I was interested to get a sense of how Vili was holding up under the pressure of the high expectations created by her recent run of dominance.  She is not only the defending Olympic and World champion, but recently put together a 28-meet undefeated streak, a remarkable achievement considering the high level of competition offered by the likes of Mikhnevich and her Belarussian counterpart Nadezhda Ostapchuk. During the pre-meet press conference, and also when interviewed after the competition, Vili exuded confidence and went out of her way to say that she welcomed competition. “I’m always quite happy and proud to be in a situation where I get challenged and give the crowd a good competition to watch. It is not that exciting when you go out and win automatically, whereas if you’ve got someone chasing you like today with Natalya, it’s good.”  She acknowledged feeling some pressure as the defending Olympic champion but added, “the Olympic Games were two years ago. This year we look upon 2010 and there’s new people coming through. And you’ve just got to face the competition that’s here now. Get on and do what you have to do.”

There are, however, indications that, like Brown-Trafton,  Vili  has found life at the top to be a bit complicated. Shortly after Ostapchuk ended Vili’s streak by defeating her at the Indoor World Championships in March, Vili fired her coach of eleven years and began training with former French national coach Didier Poppe. An article I read mentioned that Vili was making some technical changes under her new coach, and I asked her if a desire to modify her technique was the motivation behind the coaching switch. “I really don’t want to talk about that, “she replied. “I’ve already moved past that.”  Clearly this was an emotional issue, and I did not want to pry but I was left wondering if the pressure of staying on top really was getting to her. If not, why would her first loss in two-and-a-half years lead her to fire her coach? She said that she was excited about refining her technique under the guidance of Poppe, and that she felt like she had a lot of room for improvement, but did not go into specifics, saying only that “Change is always good, you know?”

In any case, it was really fun to see her throw. She is extremely athletic for her size, and does a fantastic job with the short-long glide, staying down and wrapped during her glide and then driving right-to-left through a very wide base. She sometimes appeared to hesitate slightly upon landing in her power position, but that may be the result of her focusing on some technical matter that she’s working on with her new coach.  She’s only twenty-five years old, and if any current thrower has a prayer of getting near Natalia Lisovskaya’s 22.63m world record it would seem to be Vili. She laughed when I told her I thought she could make a run at the record some day, and reminded me that “no one has thrown twenty-two meters in a long time.”  She’s a formidable athlete though, and after watching her pound out throw after throw of nearly 20 meters, I think she’ll be the next to cross that 22-meter barrier.

Men’s Javelin

One glance at the start list for the men’s javelin made it pretty clear that another meet record was in grave danger. All five foreign entrants came in with PRs anywhere from eight to twelve meters beyond the 79.16m thrown by Brian Chaput in 2005, including three (Andreas Thorkildson, Tero Pitkamaki, and Vadims Vasilevskis) who have thrown over 90 meters. Petr Frydrych, a twenty-two-year-old from the Czech Republic was the first to break it, with a round one toss of 84.45m. Andreas Thorkildson, the 2004 and 2008 Olympic champion, took it from Frydrych with a throw of 87.02 in round two. Frydrych responded with an 85.04m toss in round three, and that duo remained in first and second the entire way. Pitkamaki of Finland, Thorkildson’s friend and rival, finished third at 82.57m.

In talking to Thorkildson after the competition, it became clear that when God was handing out brains, looks, and talent twenty-eight years ago, Andreas somehow managed to get to the front of each of those lines. Like most guys, I would normally kind of hate him for that, but he was so polite and laid-back that I could not help but like him.

When asked about his rivalry with Pitkamaki (they have dueled 54 times during their careers with Thorkildson holding a 28-26 edge) he replied, “We get along well. When Tero won his world title (in Helsinki) I was happy for him. When I win I hope he’s happy for me.” He attributes his ability to avoid shoulder and elbow problems to gymnastics exercises that he includes in his training regimen and to keeping his practice throws to a minimum. “I believe in being fresh for every time I go out. I know that a lot of people throw a lot more than me, but so much of the technique is split-second technique …if I start throwing bad after fifteen or twenty throws and I don’t feel like it’s getting better, I shut it down.”

His favorite lift is the bench press (195k PR) although he’s pretty good at power cleans as well (155k PR from the hang)  and his attitude towards handling pressure is something that I’ll bet every coach wishes they could bottle and distribute to their athletes.  “People at home expect me to win and I do what I can to win,” he explained. “But, you’ve got to know that you’ve got good days on the track and you’ve got bad days on the track. I don’t think anyone is going to hate me if I don’t throw well for one day. At the end of the day, it’s still entertainment.”

I can’t think of a better word to describe the experience of watching these remarkable throwers on a warm summer’s day on Randall’s Island. Here’s to the IAAF, and to diamonds, my new BFFs!

by Dan McQuaid

this article originally appeared in the Long & Strong Throwers Journal in August 2010