I always remembered Paolo Dal Soglio as the guy who crashed the party in the men’s shot put at the 1996 Olympic Games. When I turned on my television that July evening, I was expecting to see an epic battle between European gliders and American spinners, but was greeted instead by the sight of Paolo (an Italian spinner!) having the time of his life. He held the lead until round five, and though he ended up missing the podium by a centimeter, he stole the show with his high-pitched screams and unabashed joy at performing on the big stage.
Paulo, in his athletic prime.
Fast forward to the summer of 2021, and I found myself greatly entertained by the sight of another Italian spinner having the time of his life at an Olympic Games. At first, I thought there’d been a mix up and the officials had accidentally put a decathlete in the men’s shot final there in Tokyo, but it turned out that this guy Zane Weir could really throw! He ended up launching a PB of 21.41m to take fifth, and has since raised that PB to 21.99m.
Zane Weir, an inspiration for skinny people everywhere.
It also turns out that Paolo is Zane’s coach, and they will present together at the upcoming 2022 European Shot Put Conference to be held October 28th-30th in Tallinn, Estonia.
I had the pleasure of speaking with Paolo recently as we taped an episode of the Throw Big Throw Far Podcast hosted by my friend Joe Frontier, and I was impressed with his thoughtful approach to coaching the rotational shot.
Like most putters from his era, Paolo started out as a glider. His coach for his entire career was a man named Aldo Pedron, and at some point Paolo and Aldo sought advice from the German coach Peter Tschiene, who suggested trying the rotational technique.
“We trained one month with the spin,” Paolo recalls, “and Peter said if I throw within 50 centimeters of my glide PB, we would change.”
He did, and they did.
This was 1991, in the Dark Ages before YouTube, and there was not a lot of information available on how to make the glide-to-spin conversion, so Aldo, Peter, and Paolo set about finding their own way.
Paolo says that they tried many options and experimented with different approaches to each phase of the throw, including his setup at the back. “We tried starting with a very deep bend in the knees,” he says, “and also standing straight up. The hardest thing was changing where I held the shot on my neck. That took a long time to get right.”
A big breakthrough came one day when Paolo was training in a cramped indoor space and launching many throws out of the sector. Those throws were “destroying things,” so Peter suggested that Paolo move to his right on his setup.
Immediately, that adjustment felt “amazing.”
“I felt like I had a bigger circle,” he recalls. “I could get my lower body ahead and build torsion.”
Along with Zane, Paolo also coaches Leonardo Fabbri (21.99m PB) and both those gents use the offset setup. That does not mean, however, that Paolo tries to make them copy his technique, as many people assumed he would when he began coaching.
“People were worried. They said, ‘Paolo has a big kick. Not good!'”
But Paolo believes that each athlete has to find their own way to make the shot go far. One key, he says, is creating torsion.
“You have two different engines,” he explains, “the upper body and the lower body. They work separately for most of the throw then at the end together.”
He also emphasized the need for trust between an athlete and coach, and the importance of determination, especially once an athlete reaches a level where improvement comes slowly.
“When you start out,” he says, “every day is like Christmas. But after that, are you willing to work keep working? Are you able mentally to train one year for a little bit of improvement?”
At the upcoming conference, Paolo and Zane will demonstrate the approach they used to help Zane improve from an anonymous skinny dude with a 19.09m PB into one of the world’s top putters.
World champion Chase Ealey and her coach, Paul Wilson will also present, as will Paulo Reis, coach of Auriol Dongmo.
It should be a fantastic weekend! You’ll find registration info here.
Paul Wilson, coach of 2022 World Champion Chase Ealey and eight-time British Champion Scott Lincoln will be one of the main presenters at the upcoming European Shot Put Conference to be held on 28-30 October in Tallinn, Estonia.
The conference has been put together by Hans Üürike of Global Throwing, in cooperation with European Athletics.
The format will include lectures, practical demonstrations, discussions and, according to Hans, lots of socializing.
He expects that there will be at least 100 coaches in attendance, and says that when that many shot put coaches get together, “the throwing talk never stops. I know from our previous conferences, that these coaches love having dinner together and going to the bar together and asking advice from each other. This is one of the best things about attending a conference in person–the relationships that people develop make the community stronger.”
Paul is also a big believer in collaboration among coaches. He says he learned a lot from Don Babbitt earlier in his career, and still keeps in touch with him. He has also consulted with people like Dylan Armstrong, Dale Stevenson and René Sack.
“I listen to what people have to say, and sometimes I think ‘That might work for your athlete but it might not work for my athlete,’ but there’s often something you can borrow. And a lot of times, it comes from just having a chat with other coaches, just talking generally and then you come away with some things you can use.”
Paul has been coaching the throws in Great Britain for years, but came to international prominence after engineering the revival of Chase Ealey’s career this past season.
It is a remarkable story, which I wrote about in detail here, but the bottom line is that after meeting strictly by chance last January, Chase and Paul developed a coach/athlete partnership that led seven months later to her first World title.
Paul has a lot to share regarding rotational technique and his philosophy of coaching, and Chase–who is also extremely articulate when it comes to talking about technique–will be there as well, so attendees can look forward to hearing both sides of this amazing success story.
Stay tuned for more info regarding other presenters at this year’s European Shot Conference. In the meantime, check out their website for info regarding registration.
Kara WINGER of the United States competes in the womens Javelin Throw during the Iaaf Diamond League meeting (Weltklasse Zuerich) at the Letzigrund Stadium in Zurich, Thursday, September 8, 2022. (Weltklasse Zuerich/Urs Jaudas)
Domestic Bliss, Weaponized
In the documentary film The Last Waltz, Robbie Robertson, lead singer of the band “The Band,” describes touring as, “a goddamned impossible way of life.” The constant travel. The weird hours. The unfamiliar food. The ache of loneliness that wells up when the arena goes silent.
Professional track athletes know that scene. To make a living in the sport, they have to ply the European circuit for much of the summer while also managing trips to far-flung locales like Doha and Rabat.
And while traveling for a living might sound glamorous to those of us who make the same commute to the same office every day, think of this: When it goes badly at work, we still get to go home at the end of the day and sit on the couch with our spouse and share a glass of wine and watch a few episodes of “Friends” or “Shark Tank” and feel their warmth next to us all night before we have to get up and face the world again. But that’s not the way it works on the road. Not usually.
Russ Winger, formerly a world class shot and discus thrower and currently the coach and husband of Kara Winger, says that “when things are not going well in Europe, it’s the worst. You’re away from home, not competing well, not getting anything good out of the sport. That makes a lot of athletes decide they don’t want to continue.”
Kara experienced those feelings during the summer of 2021, when she struggled to find her rhythm while competing overseas. Looking ahead to 2022, which she had announced would be her final season, Kara realized that her last lap around the circuit would be much more enjoyable if Russ came with her. So, she asked him to be her coach.
It’s easy to imagine an arrangement like that going badly. Most of us do not like getting advice from our spouse on mundane matters such as driving directions or how best to fold a t-shirt, let alone having them remind us day after day to keep our javelin back.
But Russ and Kara made it work.
“I’ve loved being her coach,” he said recently. “It’s been fun because we know each other very well. I’ve seen her at her best and worst, and she has seen me at my best and worst, and that’s a perspective you can’t get from other folks.”
Bottom line, having Russ with her every day, especially on trips overseas, made Kara happy, and according to her longtime friend and strength coach Jamie Meyers, Kara “always does well when she’s happy.”
Her performance this summer would seem to support that assertion. In June, she won her ninth national title with a throw of 64.26m. A month later, she took her first-ever World Championships medal with a sixth-round toss of 64.05m. Two weeks after that, she won the Diamond League meeting in Brussels. The 68.11m she threw there was her first PB in twelve years. It was also the best throw in the world this year and is now the American record. She then finished her season by winning the Diamond League title for the first time.
As that meet in a sold-out Letzigrund Stadium concluded, the event winners were feted with a parade and fireworks and a mini-concert. After that, she made her way through the media gauntlet with her usual aplomb, providing thoughtful answers to mundane questions, making sure every reporter got what they needed. When there were no more queries, she looked around and smiled. “And now,” she announced, “I get to see Russ!”
ALong Time Coming
Had Joe Kovacs walked away from the sport during the winter of 2019, as it looked like he might, he’d have retired with the kind of resumé (a World Championship gold and silver, an Olympic silver, a 22.57m PB) that would have placed him among the top ten putters of all time. Not bad for a guy who finished fourth at the NCAA Championships in 2012, his senior year at Penn State, and wasn’t even sure he wanted to try competing as a professional. When I spoke with him after that NCAA final, his main goal in athletics seemed to be surpassing 500 pounds in the bench press. And they say shot putters are meatheads.
But later that summer, Joe hit a big PB–21.08m–at the Olympic Trials, which got him within twenty centimeters of making the team, which got him an invite to live and train in Chula Vista under the guidance of Art Venegas, which put him on the path to building a remarkable career.
Joe KOVACS of the United States competes in the Shot Put Men event during the Weltklasse Zuerich, Diamond League meeting at the Sechselaeutenplatz on Wednesday, September 7, 2022 in Zurich, Switzerland.
(Weltklasse Zuerich/Urs Bucher)
He established himself as the best shot putter on the planet in 2015 by blasting a PB of 22.56m in July and then winning the World Championships later that summer in Beijing. And based on some titanic warmup throws (including a reputed 24-meter bomb at Triton in 2014) it looked like Joe might be on the way to taking down Randy Barnes’ world record of 23.12m and making a case for himself as the best putter of all time.
Then, Ryan Crouser happened.
Many people were surprised when Crouser, after flying under the radar all winter and spring, blasted 22.11m to win the Olympic Trials in 2016, but Joe and Art were not surprised. Ryan had been training in Chula Vista prior to the Trials, so they’d gotten a closeup view of his capabilities.
Joe threw 21.78m in Rio, a distance that would have won five of the previous six Games, but when Crouser bombed an Olympic record 22.52m for the gold, it was clear that a new era had dawned in the men’s shot.
Joe upped his PB to 22.57m the following year, and finished ahead of Crouser while taking silver at the London Worlds, but it still seemed likely that at some point Crouser would use his 6’7″ frame and silky smooth rhythm to dominate the event.
To counter that looming threat, Art and Joe began experimenting with technical modifications, which they hoped might turn Joe’s more compact build into an advantage. My understanding is that Joe began setting up in the ring much like the discus thrower you can see in this video. He and Art believed that this new starting position would give him a longer path of acceleration on the ball, which would ultimately translate to farther throws. It was also an approach that a larger thrower like Crouser probably could not employ within the confines of a shot put ring, so if Joe could make it work it would give him a leg up on his main rival.
Ideally, a thrower attempting a major technical change would take a year away from competition to perfect their new style, but that’s hard to do when you make your living as a shot putter, so Joe spent 2018 working on his new approach in practice while using his “old” technique in meets. Understandably, he struggled. He also got injured.
The following winter, newly married to the former Ashley Muffet and living in Columbus, Ohio, where Ashley worked as the throws coach at Ohio State, Joe found himself at a crossroads. He made occasional trips to California to train with Art, but the transition to the new technique did not seem to be working. Meanwhile, he had lost his feel for his “old” style of throwing and was struggling to hit 20 meters. At the same time, being married to Ashley made him realize that he could have a full and happy life outside of the ring, and he began to wonder if he should retire.
Luckily for the sport, Joe decided to stick with it for the 2019 season. Ashley took over as his coach and guided him to a World title in Doha in what will long be remembered as the greatest shot competition ever. It was a remarkable end to a remarkable season, which I wrote about in detail here.
It turns out that Joe and Art were correct in their assessment of Crouser’s potential. He broke the world record in 2021 with a toss of 23.37m, and has surpassed the 23-meter mark in six different comps. But with Ashley’s guidance, Joe has kept pace, taking silver at the Tokyo Games and at this summer’s Worlds with throws of 22.65m and 22.89m respectively.
After Worlds in July, Joe put together a sensational string of performances in Europe including 22.89m at the Gyulai István Memorial in Hungary, 22.65m at the Athletissima in Lausanne, and 22.61m at the Memorial Van Damme in Brussels.
And then, at the Diamond League final in Zurich, he finally breached the 23-meter line with a second-round blast of 23.23m, which put him ahead of Barnes on the all-time list. (You can view Joe’s post-meet comments here.)
Joe and Ashley moved to Nashville two years ago after she accepted a position at Vanderbilt, and they are expecting twins this fall. Will wrangling two babies prove more challenging than keeping up with Crouser? Likely.
But this golden Kovacs v. Crouser era is not going to end just yet. Joe believes that at 33, he is young enough to extend his new PB, and Crouser–who put 22.74m in Zurich despite having been sick for a month when a case of Covid morphed into a sinus infection–is not going anywhere.
However things play out, those gents now occupy the top two spots on the all-time performance list. As they should.
Joe KOVACS and Chase Ealey of the United States compete in the Shot Put Men event during the Weltklasse Zuerich, Diamond League meeting at the Sechselaeutenplatz on Wednesday, September 7, 2022 in Zurich, Switzerland. (Weltklasse Zuerich/Urs Bucher)
Sechselaeutenplatz
If you were strolling around downtown Zurich trying to work off the kilogram of chocolate you just consumed for lunch and you came across a wide, empty plaza with an unpronounceable name…
Sechselaeutenplatz on a wintry day.
…would you look out over that vast open space and say to yourself, “Hmmm…we could fit the shotput here, and the high jump over here…and everyone loves the pole vault, so we’ll put that there…and we don’t want to exclude the distance nerds, so we’ll need a temporary track for the 5,000…and we’ll have to build a couple of bridges over that track so spectators can get to the infield…and we’ll let everyone in for free and thousands will come, and we’ll build temporary stands for people who want to sit, and we’ll have concessions and give away green hats and a weird-looking furry mascot will wander around photo-bombing people’s selfies…and we’ll have maybe 48 hours to put the whole thing together and then 12 hours to take it apart afterwards. It will be fantastic!”
If the answer is yes, it is likely that you are Swiss.
Great Expectations
I taught English for many years, and on the rare occasion that I wanted to punch one of my students in the face it was usually because they’d made snide remarks about Charles Dickens. “There are too many words in this book! Can’t he just get to the point? You know he was paid by the word, right? That’s why this book is soooo long!”
What my young scholars did not perceive–and it may be that their youth precluded them from doing so–is that Dickens was a master at depicting the long, slow, grotesque, hopeful, magnificent, heart-breaking roller coaster ride that is life.
And I wish he were here to write about Chase Ealey. From high school multi-multi-sport phenom (volleyball, basketball, softball, soccer, sprints, javelin, shot) to DI All-American glide shot putter, to second-ranked putter in the world in 2019 as a spinner, to seemingly washed up in 2021, to World Champion and Diamond League Champion and World #1 in 2022, to…who knows? Maybe a world record in 2023?
Chase EALEY of the United States competes in the Shot Put Women event during the Weltklasse Zuerich, Diamond League meeting at the Sechselaeutenplatz on Wednesday, September 7, 2022 in Zurich, Switzerland.
(Weltklasse Zuerich/ Urs Bucher)
Chase and her coach, Paul Wilson, are honest about their belief that she can erase Natalya Lisovskaya’s 22.63m (thrown in 1987) from the record books. She spoke about that and other matters in this interview after her win in Zurich, and starting around the 56:20 mark of this vid of the pre-meet press conference.
Chase’s current PB is 20.51m, and a two-meter improvement is rare for someone at her age (28) and with her level of experience in the sport. When Val Adams was the same age, I asked her if she thought she could break Lisovskaya’s mark, and Val just laughed at my naiveté. Her PB at the time was 21.24m.
And she was right. She was not able to extend her PB by the time she retired in 2021, though her five World Championship and four Olympic medals make Val–in my humble opinion–the greatest putter of all time.
Chase may never match Val’s medal haul, but I agree with her and Paul that she has a chance at the world record. I base this on two factors. One, Chase believes she can do it. Two, she is a rotational putter.
I’ve been a high school coach since 1992, and during that time I’ve heard (and often shared) the following opinions regarding the rotational technique:
-It only works for stubby people.
-It is good for the occasional home run ball, but will not hold up in a high-pressure comp.
-It helps your discus technique.
-It wrecks your discus technique.
-Because the rotational technique is harder to learn, everyone should start out as a glider.
-Because the rotational technique is harder to learn, everyone should start out as a spinner.
-It works for men and not women because the 4k ball is so light.
-It is responsible for the current golden age of men’s putting.
-It is responsible for the current golden age of women’s putting.
A fun thing about coaching is that there is likely some truth to each of those statements. But I’ve heard some very high-level coaches express belief in those last two, and it is hard to argue with them.
Could Ryan Crouser have developed into a consistent 22.50m guy as a glider? Maybe. But would Joe Kovacs have hit 23.23m or Tom Walsh 22.90m with the glide? I don’t think so.
Same for Chase. Her glide PB was 18.46m and she had gone two years without hitting 18 meters when she joined up with Ryan Whiting and converted. That season, she improved to 19.68m. Clearly, she was better suited to the rotational technique. Without it, she would not have unlocked her massive potential. The same can be said of Sara Mitton (4th at Worlds, second here with a toss of 19.56m, twice over 20 meters this year) and Jessica Schilder (3rd at Worlds, 1st at the European Championships with 20.24m).
As for Chase, a case of long Covid just about sank her career in 2020-2021, but this winter she found health and happiness by relocating to Great Britain (I’m no Dickens, but I did my best to depict that phase of Chase’s life here) and produced an astonishingly consistent season featuring eight comps over 20 meters.
She showed up in Zurich wearing a boot on her left foot, the result of maybe a stress fracture or turf toe–she had not yet gotten a full diagnosis–but vowed to continue her streak of 20-meter performances. Which she did, blasting 20.19m in round three much to the delight of the spectators packed around the shot circle.
If anyone needed further evidence of Chase’s toughness and determination, she provided there on the Platz.
And that toughness, combined with remarkable athleticism (she was state champ in the 100 meters in high school), new found contentment (she is engaged to be married) and a commitment to get the most out of the rotational technique indicates to me that we may well witness an assault on the women’s shot record in the next couple of years.
I’ll post more coverage of the action on the platz and also Day 2 of the Weltklasse soon.
Going into last week’s USATF Outdoor Championships, Arianna Ince knew what she had to do to make the squad for Worlds: finish in the top three and throw 60 meters.
That combination of results would give her a spot in the top 32 on the World Athletics Road to Oregon rankings and guarantee her a return trip to Eugene in mid July.
And it seemed eminently doable. “I knew I could nail 60 meters if I just hit two cues. I like to run down the runway as fast as I can, so it’s important that my left foot stays parallel to the foul line on my transition so my hips don’t open. Also, I have to leave the jav tip on my cheek as long as I can. That helps me keep the tip down and the jav back.”
Ari reminded herself of those cues often in the days and hours leading up to Saturday’s comp, and then when it came time for her first round throw, she promptly forgot them.
“I became obsessed with the distance,” she explained later. “And that usually doesn’t work.”
It certainly didn’t in this case, as Ari opened with 54.97m and a foul.
Fortunately, this was not Ari’s first time throwing in a high pressure situation. She made the Worlds team in 2017 and 2019, and the Olympic squad last summer.
So before her third attempt Ari took a breath and went through her pre-throw routine. “I will tap the side of my foot,” she explained. “Then withdraw the jav back to my eye. That provides some tactile feedback for my body to rely on and helps me refocus on what I’m trying to do.”
That did the trick. She tossed 60.42m in round three, and followed that with 60.43m in round four. That gives Ari confidence that she can make her first international championship final next month. “I went back to the cues and 60 meters came right out. Knowing I can do that after a shaky start, I’m really proud of that.”
Another confidence booster is the fact that she possesses the 15th best throw in the world this season–a 62.74m toss at Chula Vista in June. Even better, she is the only woman in the top 32 whose ranking points came almost entirely from competitions that took place during the past month.
I asked Ari how she managed to get on a roll at just the right time, and it turns out there is a very specific reason.
Aside from a few months during the peak of the pandemic when she went to live with Kara and Russ Winger in Colorado, the Elite Athlete Center in Chula Vista has been her training base since 2019. But, as of September, throwers will no longer be part of the Elite Athlete program there, so for the early part of this summer Ari spent a lot of psychic energy worrying about how and where she would continue her athletic career. Then, a little more than a month ago, she settled on a plan. I am not allowed to reveal the details of that plan here, but suffice it to say that Ari is now thoroughly excited about her future in the sport.
She credits that decision, that “feeling of certainty” with freeing her up to focus on throwing far. “All I have to worry about now is what’s going on on the runway,” she says. “And for a professional thrower, that’s the easy part.”
“I’m not old, just sore.”
Too stubborn to quit
None of us will forget the cloud that fell over the world in March of 2020, but javelin thrower Tim Glover had been dealing with darkness for some time before the pandemic hit.
Tim, the 2011 and 2012 NCAA champion, had thrown well early in his pro career, but then suffered an elbow injury which required surgery and cost him the 2017 and 2018 seasons. Then, he was with his mother one day in the fall of 2018 when she received a call telling her that Tim’s sister had been found dead in her apartment in Chicago. He threw again in the 2019 season but injured his shoulder and had to have another surgery. That spring, his mother suffered a fatal heart attack.
Tim ended up moving to Virginia with his girlfriend, and started throwing a bit in the spring of 2021. “I was seven-stepping over 70 meters,” he says, “but I went back too hard too soon. My shoulder felt lousy, and after a while I knew there was no way I’d be throwing that season.”
He refused to hang it up, though. “I guess I was just too stubborn to quit. I didn’t want to let an injury take me out. I knew that my mom had wanted to see me get healthy and compete again, so I wanted to give it one more go.”
He had PRP (Platelet Rich Plasma) therapy, rested his shoulder, and was finally able to experiment with a light jav this past March. After throwing 75.36m and 78.52m in two April comps, he showed that the “old guy” still had it by breaking 80 meters in each of his next two outings. It had been seven years since he last threw that far.
Even more remarkable was that Tim was surpassing 80 meters while rarely training with an actual javelin. “I only throw balls in practice,” he explained. “My shoulder still can’t take throwing a jav regularly. I pick once a week, but I never throw off a runway. You’d laugh if you could see how little I do in practice.”
He maintained that routine right up to the US Championships, where he finished fifth with a best of 76.37m. That was enough, though, to send him to Worlds. Entering Sunday’s comp, only Tim, Curtis Thompson and Michael Shuey had qualified (Shuey by hitting the standard, Tim and Curtis on ranking) but the University of Virginia’s Ethan Dabbs shocked everyone by tossing 81.29m for the win. That was enough to move him up forty places in the World Athletics rankings, so when the dust cleared, Shuey, who finished seventh on Sunday, was the odd man out.
It will be Tim’s first international championships, and he says that it might come down to a “coin flip” as far as whether he’ll retire afterwards. “I’d love to go out on making a big team for the first time,” he said. “I know my shoulder will never be one hundred percent. But the next Olympics is only two years away, so…we’ll see.”
“Is that a hammer I see before me?”
What the heart wants
Maggie Ewen won the Diamond League shot put title last year, which earned her a bye into the 2022 Worlds. That made for a “weird” experience at USA’s. With no need to fight for a podium spot, Maggie did heavy cleans the day before the shot comp, and went in just hoping to road test some of the technical adjustments she’d been working on in practice.
She ended up finishing fifth with a toss of 18.79m, her best outdoor result since going 19.32m in Doha on May 13th.
The competition at World’s will be hellacious, with fellow American Chase Ealey, Canadian Sara Mitton, and Jiayuan Song of China all throwing past 20 meters in recent comps. Maggie has a PB of 19.79m, but going forward, will likely have to find a way to crack the 20-meter mark if she wants to get on an Olympic or World Championship podium.
Or, could there be another way?
During a wildly successful career at Arizona State that ended in 2018, she broke the collegiate record in the shot put (19.46m)…and in the hammer (74.56m).
She continued throwing both during the 2019 season and did quite well, thank you very much. She just missed making the Worlds squad in the hammer when she nailed a PB of 75.04m at the US Championships, and not only made the team in the shot but ended up finishing fourth at Worlds.
Things got complicated when the schedule for the 2020 Olympics came out and the women’s shot final was scheduled on the same day (and at the exact same time) as the women’s hammer qualification.
“My agent told me they petitioned to have it changed but got turned down,” Maggie recalled, “so I had to pick one. Then Covid happened, and I didn’t have a place to throw the hammer, so Kyle and I decided to just go forward with the shot and get that figured out.”
Kyle is Maggie’s coach, Kyle Long, and when competition resumed during the winter of 2021, they did in fact seem to have “figured out” the shot. Maggie belted a PB of 19.54m in February and seemed a sure bet to make the team for Tokyo. Her fourth-place finish at the Trials was a shocker, but she shook it off like a champ and went on to win the Diamond League Final.
When Maggie extended her PB to 19.79m at this year’s US Indoor Champs, most people probably assumed that she’d put the hammer away for good, but…
“Having a bye in the shot this year, we thought, ‘Why not pick up the hammer?’ Trying both again would give us a good idea of whether or not we can do this at an elite level.”
Maggie started tossing the hammer around shortly after the Indoor Worlds and integrated it into her practices as best she could when not on the road competing in the shot.
“We approached it a lot like during college days,” she explained. “We’d basically switch off every other day, and it really wasn’t that hard to find a balance. I was much busier in college when I was throwing the disc, too. Honestly, it’s been refreshing. I get in the habit of overthinking when I’m only doing shot, so it helps when I’m forced to take my mind off of it every other day.”
“And it felt great to be back throwing the hammer in that environment at USAs again and it was fun to be with the hammer girls. Each group of girls has their own little vibe, and it was amazing to be with them again.”
Make no mistake, though, Maggie did not enter last week’s hammer comp just to catch up with old friends. She had every intention of making the team, and came damn close to doing it. Her 72.70m in round six was a season’s best and a Worlds qualifier and left her one spot away from having to make a very interesting decision.
It turns out that women’s hammer and shot qualifying are scheduled for the same day at Worlds. If Maggie made the team in the hammer and was placed in Qualification Group B, she’d have had only a short break before reporting for the shot. That might be manageable at an NCAA meet, but probably not when going against the world’s best.
Maggie didn’t say which she’d have chosen, but says she believes her “top end” in the hammer is “way higher” than in the shot.
“I only threw it for four years and got it to go 75 meters,” she says. “I have so much untapped potential. But shot is where you make your money. It’s indoor and outdoor, and more meets host it. I would love to be throwing the hammer way more. I guess the future depends on how the world is going and how I’m going.”
Jess Woodard picked a great day for a breakthrough.
Finally
After taking third place at the 2022 USATF Indoor Championships with a toss of 18.70m this February, shot putter Jessica Woodard told me that she was “close” to some 19 meter throws.
Ahhh, but the best laid plans.
After hitting 18.77m in Walnut, California, in April, Jess traveled to Brazil for two meets. Unfortunately, when she arrived in Miami her connecting flight had been canceled. She got out the next day, but arrived in Brazil at 12:30am and then had to compete that evening. Exhausted, she went 17.98m and 17.94m in two meets in São Paulo, then returned home with a case of Covid.
Her best mark during May was 18.54m. In her final competition prior to the US Championships, she threw 17.65m. That was at a meet in Canada on June 8th.
Jess knew she’d have to find a way to get past the 19 meter mark at USAs to have any chance of making the team for the World Championships but felt stuck, she says, “in a little bit of a funk. It felt like everything was hard. Usually that time of year things fall into place and the ball starts going far, but the ball wasn’t going far and I felt like I was drowning a little bit going into the championship season.”
With the support of her coach, Ryan Whiting, and boyfriend/training partner Darrell Hill, Jess finally found some rhythm a week before the US Outdoor Championships, but then in her final squat workout a few days before the comp she “tweaked her back pretty good.”
She flew to Eugene shortly after, and was able to get physical therapy there while gutting her way through her final practices.
With Maggie Ewen holding a wildcard as defending Diamond League champion, Jess needed to finish among the top three throwers without the last name Ewen in order to make the Worlds team.
That did not turn out to be easy.
She had her best opener ever, 18.79m, then fouled her next two attempts as Chase Ealey (20.51m), Adelaide Aquilla (19.45m), and Raven Saunders (18.95m) passed her. That’s a formidable trio, and in the past Jess might have wilted. “I had always struggled,”she says,” to move into that top group.”
A ten-minute break between rounds three and four seemed to last “forever,” and when the comp resumed she tossed another 18.79m.
A week earlier in practice Jess realized that most of her missed throws were the result of her not being aggressive enough, so she decided to “push it” a bit in round five.
The result was a 19.40m PB.
Some anxious moments ensued, as Raven–the Olympic silver medalist–still had two more whacks at overtaking her. But Raven went foul, 18.72m, and Jess was on the team.
How did that feel?
“I kind of blacked out on that throw,” she says, “but afterwards, I felt joy. And relief!”
A “rest the pec” strategy paid off for Josh Awotunde.
Back on the attack
Shot putter Joshua Awotunde finished fifth at the 2022 World Indoor Championships, opened his outdoor campaign with a 21.63m toss at Mt. SAC, then essentially disappeared from competition.
A strained pec was the culprit.
It came during an April training session when he tried to “go for it” on his last attempt of the day. It turned out to be a serious strain, and when he resumed throwing after two weeks of rest and rehab, Josh had to content himself with using a 12-pound shot. It took him four weeks to work up to the 14, and he did not attempt a full throw with a 16 until early June.
Josh missed two Diamond League comps during that span, which is not ideal if you are trying to eke out a living as a shot putter, but he did not want to risk aggravating the pec and possibly having to shut down for the season.
Two days before the Champs in Eugene, Josh threw a practice PB of 23.40m with the 14, an indication that he had not lost his pop, but two months without a competition left him wondering if he’d be able to find his rhythm in the heat of battle.
“I just wanted to throw 70 feet again,” he says. “ I just wanted to execute my technique.”
A 21.50m warmup throw made him think he might be in better shape than he’d thought, and a 21.24m opener put him in the hunt for the Worlds team. The situation for the dudes was the same as it had been for the ladies. One thrower–in this case Joe Kovacs–had a bye, so the US would be allowed to send four competitors to Worlds. That turned out to be a good thing, as Joe, playing with house money, opened with a 22.87m bomb.
Josh went 20.68m in round two, which left him in fourth behind Joe, Ryan Crouser, and Tripp Piperi.
That was not a comfortable place to be, considering that Roger Steen, Jordan Geist, and Darrell Hill all looked capable of jumping ahead of him.
Josh needed to shake off the rust, pronto. He took a minute to confer with Crouser before taking his third attempt.
“I’m slow today,” Josh told him.
“Yeah,” Crouser replied. “You’re not attacking like you did indoors.”
Josh’s coach, Mike Sergent, agreed, so Josh entered the ring for round three with one thought in mind–push harder out of the back.
It worked. He went 21.51m, nowhere near his PB of 22.00m, but a satisfying result after not competing for two months, and good enough to move him into third.
And there he stayed, in spite of a great day by Piperi (six throws over 21.00m) and Steen (a 21.14m PB).
Meanwhile, Crouser and Joe waged a titanic battle for the title. Some have speculated that the way to beat a healthy Crouser is to throw a haymaker early to knock him off his rhythm. Joe did that and more when he hit 22.87m again in round two.
But it didn’t matter. Crouser wasn’t able to extend his World Record of 23.37m, but check out this series: 22.42m, F, 23.12m, 23.01m, 23.11m, 22.98m.
Apparently, he can take a punch.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the Darrell Hill situation. “Nightmare” might be more accurate. “Recurring nightmare,” actually, because a similar scenario unfolded at the US Indoor Champs. In both comps, Darrell got called for a questionable foul on a throw that might have put him on the podium. In both comps, he protested and was allowed to throw in the finals while the protest was being adjudicated. In both comps, his protest was denied and he was removed from the final.
Friday’s situation contained a bizarre twist. Darrell was originally told that he’d fouled his first attempt by brushing the top of the toeboard on his reverse. After reviewing the video, though, the officials changed their mind. They agreed with Darrell that he had not touched the top of the toeboard, but claimed instead that he had fouled at the back of the ring.
The whole thing devolved into a huge mess with Darrell maintaining a running debate with the officials while also trying to remain composed enough to get off a solid throw. Afterwards, he posted an Instagram video in which he explained all the crazy and frustrating details. It’s worth watching.
I am told that he’s not going to let the matter drop and is intent on forcing USATF to find a more consistent way to determine fouls. If he succeeds, Darrell will have done the sport a great service. In the meantime, it looks like he will not make the squad for Worlds.
In his absence, the US will still send a formidable crew of putters. Crouser and Kovacs will likely resume their Godzilla v. Destoroyah battle, and Josh believes he can improve on his World Indoor finish.
“I know I need to work on reversing and confidently getting through the shot,” he says. “But my experience at Indoor Worlds will help me. And it will be great to have home court advantage. I know we are going to want to put on a show. I asked my coach, ‘Can we sweep?” and he said, ‘Yeah.’ We’ve got some work to do, but it would be fun to make history.”
Mike’s 85.67m toss from July 2021 puts him in good shape to make the WC squad.
Dammit!
It could have been any number of things.
He’d blasted a PB of 85.67m less than three weeks earlier, so there was no reason to doubt his fitness.
But sleeping on an uncomfortable bed and walking everywhere in the Olympic village made him feel a little tight in the hips. Having to wake up at 4:00am the day of the qualification round was not ideal, nor was the 90-degree temperature and 96 percent humidity that morning.
There is also a lot of sitting and waiting involved at a major championships. He felt good at the warmup track, but then had to chill out for nearly an hour in call room number one, and again in call room number two before being taken into the stadium.
Also, the runway was falling apart. The Tokyo organizers had installed a super special Mondo track surface designed to propel runners to Olympic and World records, which it did. But when subjected to the one-ton of pressure exerted each time a javelin thrower slammed his blocking foot into the ground, the spongy top layer of that surface shredded, creating a very dicey situation for the athletes.
It could have been any of those things, or none of them. The fact is that sprinting twenty meters then hitting the breaks while whipping a light spear as far as you can is none too good for the joints.
Whatever the case may be, Michael Shuey was not thinking about the hazards of his chosen profession last August when he stepped up to take his first throw as an Olympian. He was thinking about his technique.
“My cue on round one,” he recalled recently, “was to run down there easy, then drop my right knee into the throw as hard as I could.”
That’s a common cue for javeliners, a simple way to make sure they get the most out of their right hip as they blast into the throw. But on this attempt Mike’s right heel got stuck, and his knee paid the price.
“I felt like I dislocated my kneecap,” he says. “All I could think about was that everyone back home just watched me blow out my knee.”
The kindness of strangers
“I went back to my seat and wrapped it. The Romanian guy, Novac, was like ‘Hey Mike, you need my tape?’ He lent me some, and one of the Finnish guys said, ‘Hey, I’m not using my knee brace. Do you want to use it?’ I really appreciated that. It was a cool experience. I just hope I never have to have it again.”
It has been a long road back from the injury he suffered in Tokyo.
Kindness, part two
“Getting injured at Olympics is a whole different realm. They scheduled me for an MRI, and I thought ‘Oh good, I’ll get to see some of Tokyo on the way to the hospital.’ But the hospital was right there in the village, next to the cafeteria. They had orthopedic doctors. Physical therapists. Even a dentist. I was talking to them, and they told me that since some countries don’t have access to health care, they let athletes get stuff taken care of at the Olympics. For example, a guy from Africa had a decayed tooth in back of his mouth that was completely hollowed out. They pulled it, and I asked him how long he’d been dealing with that tooth. He said two years!”
The road back
It turned out to be a posterolateral corner injury, which is Latin for “a really messed up knee.” Torn meniscus. Torn cartilage. Sprained lateral ligaments.
Once he arrived back home, Mike underwent microfracture surgery, which involves drilling small holes into the ends of the bones near the damaged cartilage. The holes are meant to stimulate the production of fresh cartilage cells.
After the surgery, Mike was told that he would need to rest his knee for six months. That meant rehab and walking throws only.
The knee swelled up a lot. He had PRP (platelet-rich plasma injection) therapy and did his best not to lose his feel for making a javelin go far.
“It was a lot of trial and error,” he says. ” I will definitely try to get my rehab plan published after this.”
And now…
Mike has competed once this season, producing a toss of 75.25m at the USATF Throws Fest in Tucson in May. Before that meet, he’d had a total of two practices during which he’d gone beyond walking throws and threw using a short approach.
His training continues to be a mix of rehab and throwing drills, with the knee a constant consideration. He uses a variety of javs when he throws, everything from a 1-kilo down to a 600-gram implement.
Mike says his knee feels “moderately okay” right now, and that he is working to find the feel on his throws.
“I have my footwork down now, I just need to get connected with the jav and hit solid, line drive throws.”
In terms of qualifying for the World Championships, Mike’s big toss from last July has put him in a great spot. He is currently the only American man to have hit the World Athletics qualifying mark, which makes him a virtual lock to make the squad. Tim Glover and Curtis Thompson are likely to join him on the Worlds team, based on their current WA ranking.
Mike feels ready going into this weekend’s USATF Champs.
What’s the meaning of this?
Assuming he makes the team, Mike says that qualifying for Worlds “will give me self validation that regardless of what hardships happen to me, I can come back better. It might not bring me fame and riches, but emotionally it will do a lot for me. My big goal is to make finals at Worlds, and I think I can do it.”
Ready to take a chance again
Mike is cognizant of the risk he will be taking when he once again unleashes his full technique at full speed. He says that a javelin thrower’s body has to be comfortable enough with that range of motion you need to make a big throw. “When you put yourself in that elongated, somewhat treacherous position, your body can be like ‘Noooo!’ and bail out of it. That’s why you always throw farther in a meet than in practice. You need that adrenaline to help you push your limits.”
Limit pushing time in the men’s javelin will take place on Sunday at 11:35am Pacific.
Marcus Gustaveson left his mark on Wheaton North High School in the suburbs of Chicago. Lots of marks, actually. The dents in the support post on the right side of the discus cage there bear silent testament to his ferocious and–in those days–uncontrolled power.
I coach the throws at Wheaton North, and was very excited when Marcus decided to try the shot and disc in the winter of his junior year. He was a super nice kid and, more importantly, had long levers and great pop.
But like a lot of young dudes still in the process of sprouting upwards, he struggled with footwork and timing, and in our two years together we were never able to harness his potential. His best discus throw in high school was 144 feet, although had there been no cage or foul lines he might have gone 200.
Our first winter together I started him off as a glide shot putter, so of course one day he decided to improvise a spin. I’ve never seen a giraffe caught in a tornado, but after witnessing Marcus’s first attempt at rotational putting, I never want to.
“Dear god!” I told him. “Promise me you’ll never try that again!”
After high school, Marcus enrolled at Concordia University, St. Paul, where he competed in both football and track. Participating in spring football practices limited his throwing to one session a week that first season, but he still managed to break the Concordia freshman record in the shot with a throw of 15.98m (Fun Fact: His coach that year was hammer thrower Sean Donnelly).
He spent very little time working on the discus. “I’d take maybe two throws each practice,” he recalls. “Then Sean would laugh at me because it was so ugly, and we’d stop.” His best toss that season was 43.32m.
The next year, Donnelly left to become a resident athlete at Chula Vista, and was replaced by former University of Minnesota javelin thrower Rachel Melum. Though still mainly focused on football, under Melum’s guidance Marcus was able to improve his discus PB to 50.78m.
Melum departed after one season, and was replaced by Lina Baker, a former DIII All-American in the hammer. Baker recognized Marcus’s potential as a discus thrower, and encouraged him to shift his focus from football to track. Marcus took her advice and did not participate in spring football during his junior year.
With the clock ticking on his throwing career, Baker also convinced him to ditch his glide and try spinning in the shot in hopes that doing so would accelerate his progress in the disc. It was not the smoothest of transitions, and Marcus competed mostly from a half turn, but he threw 15.99m and the effort he put into learning rotational shot did seem to transfer to the disc.
He only improved his discus PB by a meter during that 2019 season, but he and Coach Baker could tell that he was on the brink of much bigger throws. The following February, he put the shot 16.98m and felt ready to do serious damage in the disc when…the world shut down.
A career lost then found
Marcus’s parents had moved to Colorado after he graduated from high school, and he joined them there while trying to sort out his future. When it became clear that the pandemic would wipe out the rest of the track season, he told Baker that he was calling it a career.
Later that spring, though, he came across a discus in his garage and decided to toss it around a bit. He ended up taking some full throws in tennis shoes on a sidewalk, launching the disc into an open field. It felt good.
He bought a pair of throwing shoes and a few more discs. Before long, he was throwing at a local high school track and sending videos to Lina.
In the fall of 2020, he returned to St. Paul and began working forty hours a week at Enterprise while also training and taking classes toward an MBA. He lifted with Lina at 4:00am, and threw with her at 7:00pm.
Their work paid off in the spring when he threw 61.53m at the Tucson Elite meet. That got him into the Olympic Trials, and while in Eugene he was invited to become a resident athlete at Chula Vista.
It turns out that the resident athlete program for throwers was about to be phased out, so he ended up renting an apartment with hammer thrower Autavia Fluker and javeliner Mike Shuey.
Marcus spent the fall and winter working, volunteer coaching at a local high school, and training at the center under the guidance of John Dagata. It was a grind similar to his final year at Concordia, but the payoff came this spring when he opened with a 64.46m bomb at a meet in Long Beach.
The Next Step
Now a certifiably world class thrower, Marcus enters this week’s USATF Championships as a longshot to make the team for Worlds. He will need to climb into the top 32 to qualify by ranking, and that is not likely as he currently sits at 63. That means hitting the performance standard of 66.00m.
If he can do that, the impact on his career would be significant. “Everything would change,” he surmises. “If you make an Olympic or World team, you get noticed, get more funding, maybe get invited to international meets. It just makes everything more achievable.”
Easy, Big Fella
Those are exciting possibilities, but possibilities are not something you want to be mulling over as you enter the ring. Marcus has surpassed 60 meters only twice since tossing that PB in Long Beach, and he attributes his struggles to being too focused on nailing the 66.00m qualifier.
His plan for Thursday is to start easy, with maybe eighty percent effort, knowing that when the adrenaline kicks in at a big meet, staying under control and feeling positions is more important than trying to generate speed.
His goal is to “build a good series, with every throw over 60 meters. Throw a little bit better each round and ignore what other guys are doing. If I get the standard, great, but I’d really like to finish in the top three. I’ve done a lot of learning this year, and a top three finish would be a big step for me.”
A bit more on Thursday’s discus comp
The only American in the top 32 right now is Sam Mattis. Sam also has the standard, having nailed a PB of 68.69m in May.
Andrew Evans, who did not post a mark in 2020 or 2021, reappeared this season and reached 66.74m last month. He has been over 63.00m in five of his six comps this year.
Brian Williams has had an up-and-down season with three meets under 60.00m and five over. His season’s best of 66.14m came in early May, but he’s a veteran of these championship meets and made the team for Doha by throwing a then PB of 65.76m at the 2019 US Championships. His experience will make him a contender to make this year’s squad as well.
My head says those three will make the podium, but in my heart I’ll be pulling for Marcus.
The men’s discus comp will take place on Thursday at 5:45pm Pacific.
Roger was a two-time DIII national champion at the University of Wisconsin Eau Claire.
In February, Roger Steen achieved a major career breakthrough by placing third at the USATF Indoor Championships.
If he can match that finish at this week’s Outdoor Championships, he will make the US squad for the upcoming Worlds–quite an achievement for a former DIII athlete in this country’s most hellaciously competitive event.
I checked in with Roger last week to talk about his career and his preparation for this Friday’s shot competition.
Staying in the game
There are no million-dollar signing bonuses for shot putters when they turn pro, so even the most accomplished collegiate throwers have to figure out a way to support themselves as they continue training and competing. To pay the bills, Roger manages an assisted living facility in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. He has worked there since his college days and says his employer is understanding about the need to occasionally take time off to travel to meets–an important consideration for an itinerant shot putter.
Navigating the pandemic
During “normal” times, finding a way to support yourself while training and competing is tough enough. Throw in a pandemic that shut down practice facilities and basically wiped out the 2020 season, and someone in Roger’s shoes could not be blamed for calling it a career. Several factors helped him stay the course. The assisted living facility where he works stayed open, so his income was not affected. He and his long time training partner Curt Jensen (21.63m PB) were already lifting in a garage, so they did not miss any strength sessions. Of the throwing events, the shot put is the easiest when it comes to improvising a place to chuck. Perhaps most importantly, Roger and Curt developed some serious camaraderie with a couple of fellow throwers who they invited to share their garage weight room. Fellow putter Adam Strouf (currently of the University of Indiana) and UW Stout hammer thrower, Jacob Bugella trained there regularly. Between those four, there was “always someone at the facility, always someone ready to throw.”
Roger recalls that “in 2020, as soon as we found out there would be no Olympic Trials, all of us started on a heavy training cycle. We suffered together, and that got us through.”
Qualifying for Worlds
To satisfy the requirements set forth by World Athletics, Roger has to either hit the qualifying standard of 21.10m, or climb into the top 32 in the World Rankings.
He is currently ranked at number 33 and has a PB of 21.07m, so he’s close on both counts.
The tougher challenge will be placing high enough at the US Championships to make the team. Joe Kovacs earned a bye into the 2022 Worlds by winning in 2019, and the US will be allowed to send three putters in addition to Joe, so that will help.
But he’ll still have to battle guys like Ryan Crouser, Darrell Hill, Payton Otterdahl, Josh Awotunde, Adrian Piperi, and Jordan Geist for one of those three spots.
That might sound like a tall order for a former University of Wisconsin Eau-Claire Blugold, but–as evidenced by his showing this winter in Spokane–Roger has gotten to the point where he throws his best against the best.
“I’ve competed against all those guys,” he told me. “I was at last year’s Trials when Ryan threw the World Record. He beat me by almost three meters, but I had my best series ever to that point. So, it’s not about what the other guys do. It all depends on if my training is right. Curt always tells me it’s best to be ‘strong like bull and smart like tractor.’ In other words, don’t waste time thinking about ifs or buts. Just get in there and do what you have to do.”
“Also, I like all the guys I’ll be throwing against. We’re all friends, and it’s fun trying to beat your friends.”
A quick side note regarding World Championship byes. Crouser actually qualified for one as well by winning last year’s Diamond League final, but each country is only allowed to use one bye per event, and I’m told that the USATF has chosen to honor Joe’s.
So, to review, Joe goes to Worlds no matter what. Everyone else will fight for three spots as the US will be allowed to send four putters.
Roger and his training partner Curt Jensen at the 2021 Olympic Trials.
Don’t go changing
I asked Roger if qualifying for Worlds would have a big effect on his career. “Honestly,” he says, “it would be an awesome accomplishment, but I’ll still take things one year at a time. I’m just focused on seeing how far I can throw the shot put, and that won’t change no matter what happens at the Trials. Kurt and I both agree that we won’t ever not lift heavy. We like the pain and the sense of accomplishment of lifting and throwing, so whatever happens next week I’ll just go back to my job and back to training.”
Time to peak
I spoke to Roger on Friday, June 17th, and at that point he was one week into a tapering phase meant to prepare him for the Trials. That night he planned to do a practice competition during which he’d take 8-10 hard throws with the 16lb implement. On Saturday, he planned to do a lift featuring “top end” squats and bench in which he’d have help from bands during the concentric part of those lifts. That would be his last lifting session before competing on the 24th.
He intended to throw both heavy and light shots on Sunday, with a 2-1 ratio of heavy to light implements, then take Monday off.
A light throwing practice on Tuesday morning will be followed by travel to Eugene where he will do one final throwing session of 4-6 hard fulls in the competition ring.
He will rest on Thursday before “showtime” on Friday.
With Curt’s help, Roger has been carefully tracking the way that different types of lifting and throwing workouts have prepared him for competition, and he is confident that he knows when and how to take his foot off the pedal in training without disrupting his routine. He’s feeling good right now, a “lot more responsive in the ring,” and ready to belt some big throws.
Adrenaline: frenemy of throwers
Under the right circumstances, the adrenaline that comes from throwing in a big comp can help produce huge throws. But adrenaline is a little like nitroglycerine or a pet bobcat. Handled incorrectly, it can wreck your day.
Roger says he likes the adrenaline rush he feels when competing against the best, and is confident that he can handle it.
He recalls that when he was younger he used to get tight and worry about letting people down, but now, he says he feels like “everyone” is behind him.
He’s confident in his training, and knows that whatever happens in any given competition, he will still have his day job.
“However I throw on Friday,” he says, “it won’t make or break me. I’m not doing this to put bread on the table. I’m doing this because I love throwing the shot.”
The men’s shot comp will take place at 6:42pm Pacific Time on Friday.
After participating in four Olympic Games as a discus thrower, Vésteinn Hafsteinsson embarked upon a remarkably successful career as a coach, guiding shot putter Joachim Olsen to a silver medal in the 2004 Olympics, and discus great Gerd Kanter to Olympic and World Championship gold.
Vésteinn’s success has continued with his current training group, which consists of World and Olympic discus champion Daniel Ståhl, Olympic discus silver medalist Simon Pettersson, indoor European shot put silver-medalist and Olympic finalist Fanny Roos, former European U23 discus champion Sven Martin Skagestad, and Nordic Indoor shot put champion Marcus Thomsen.
“In the Ring with Coach V” features insights into how these athletes train and compete, stories from Vésteinn’s long career as an athlete and coach, and thoughts regarding the current state of the sport and how it can be improved.
In this edition, Coach V looks back on some highlights from the indoor season.
Earlier issues, including detailed accounts of Daniel, Simon, and Fanny’s experiences at the Tokyo Olympics may be found at macthrowvideo.com.
Daniel hard at work on the Pension Program
The Pension Program
When a regular person reaches the age of thirty, they are still quite young. For a professional athlete, it is a different story. The body begins to slow down a bit, and it becomes not so easy to recover from strenuous training sessions.
A nutritionist I worked with while I was coaching Gerd Kanter told me that it is probably impossible to break a world record once an athlete turns thirty.
Daniel is twenty-nine now, and his birthday is August 27th, so if the nutritionist is correct, he has only a few more months during which he might be able to exceed Jürgen Schult’s world record of 74.08m. Jürgen set the record in 1986, then became World Champion in 1987 and Olympic Champion in 1988. This summer, Daniel will try to reverse that order. He is currently the World and Olympic Champion, and has a PB of 71.86m.
Can he reach Jürgen’s record at his advanced age? I believe he has a chance–if we manage his training correctly. That is why I have put him on the “Pension Program” in the weight room.as well as on the throwing field.
In the Pension Program, Daniel does twenty-five or thirty percent less volume compared to previous years. The high volume phases of his training have typically featured five sets of five reps in his main lifts. There is always room for variation within those 5×5 workouts, but a typical high-volume session under his old plan would consist of twenty-five reps at between 70 and 87.5 percent.
Most of his workouts this winter featured only three sets, and the reps were usually performed at between 55 and 75 percent. On some days we would do 5-4-3 or 5-3-1 at 70-90 percent, with the 90 percent coming on the single rep in the 5-3-1 workouts.
We have taken the same approach with throwing. For example, in previous years it was not unusual for Daniel to take fifty throws with the Denfi tool in some sessions. Now, the most he takes is thirty to thirty-five.
So far, the Pension Program seems to be good for Daniel. He actually gained strength this winter while training less. He got a PB in bench press of 210 kilograms, and did an easy single at 300k in back squat.
The lower volume means that Daniel was always fresh enough to throw well during practice and was able to develop his technique, which at this point in his career is the key to him throwing far.
He was very happy on this program all winter, although he felt bad for Fanny and Simon because they are at an earlier phase in their career where they still have to spend time killing themselves to build muscle.
We usually have an indoor discus competition here in Växjö in late February, which I use to evaluate how we did with our winter training. This year, the competition was on the 25th of February, and the results were good. Daniel got an official mark of 67.62m, but also two longer fouls, one of which we measured over seventy-one meters.
To me, the capacity he showed confirmed that the pension program was working. Now, we see how it goes outdoors.
The happy father with his baby girl Ronja.
A Proud Father
Congratulations to Sven Martin on the birth of his first child, a little girl named Ronja!
I coached Sven Martin mostly digitally twice a week this winter, as he was home in Norway most of the time and I was here in Växjö. He was able to come here twice for a week or two, but I did not see him in person between late January and the beginning of our California training camp on March 30th.
During our remote sessions, Sven Martin would place his device in different spots to give me the view I needed of his technique. I have tried this with different athletes over the years, and it usually works out pretty well, although I prefer coaching live so I can jump into the ring and put the athlete into different positions. Switching to virtual coaching would be hard on Fanny, Daniel, Marcus, and Simon because they are so used to me being there in person, but Sven Martin did not live in the same town as his former coach either, so he has pretty much always been coached virtually.
The challenge for Sven Martin is to reach a point where he can throw sixty-four or sixty-five meters in no wind against good people. Then, he will be back in the game and we can start thinking about making the final at meets like the European and even the World Championships.
He is a super smart guy, and we work well together. I would love to see him come back. He threw 65.20m in 2016, but somehow lost his feel and has not thrown a PB since. But, he is physically very gifted. Compared to Simon, Sven Martin is stronger in everything–bench, squats, snatch, you name it. One session last summer, he and Simon were throwing the Denfi tool and Sven Martin beat him by five meters. He is better than Simon in everything, except throwing the discus.
So, it will be a good challenge to see if we can get him back on track.
Fanny getting ready to launch a season’s best throw of 19.22m in Belgrade.
Indoor Worlds
During the 2021 season, Fanny made huge breakthroughs when she finished second at the European Indoor Championships and seventh at the Olympic Games. You can read the details on her 2021 indoor season here and her outdoor season here.
She did extremely well in her training this winter, with many throws over nineteen meters. She struggled, though, to reach those same distances in competitions, and it is clear that the next step for Fanny is for her to get used to competing when the focus is on her. She is very shy by nature, and has always been more comfortable in meets like in the Diamond League where there are lots of good throwers and she can kind of blend in.
The 2022 Swedish Indoor Championships was a good example of how Fanny struggles at times. The meet was held in our facility in Växjö, where it would seem like she would be super comfortable, but she was by far the best women’s shot putter there and lots of people from her home town came to watch her, and this made her nervous. During her first four throws, she was unable to control the tension she felt and her best throw was 17.36m. When practicing every day in that same ring, she rarely threw less than 18.80m, so we were both pretty frustrated.
Before her final throw, I told her I wanted to test something. I said, “Focus on one thing–have your backswing one meter further back.” I was exaggerating, but the idea was to make her backswing as long and slow as possible so she would stop rushing into the throw.
Then she had her best throw, 18.95m, for a new Swedish Indoor Championships record.
The World Indoor Championships was three weeks later, on March 18th, and I was pretty confident that Fanny would throw well because, as I said, she was doing great in training, but also because she would be more comfortable throwing against the top women instead of her being the focus of everyone’s attention.
She threw 18.66m on her first attempt, which made me happy because it would probably get her in the top eight. It ended up taking 18.20m to advance to the final three rounds.
I believe she was in fifth place going into her third throw, and then she moved into second with a season’s best of 19.22m.
Fanny ended up finishing fourth behind Auriol Dongmo (20.43m), Chase Ealey (20.21m), and Jessica Schilder (19.48m), but I was very happy with how she performed. This was the third major championships in a row where she finished in the top eight, and she showed once again that she now throws her best on the biggest stage.
She went back into heavy training shortly after the Indoor Worlds, and we are very excited about her prospects for the summer.
Celebrating after a fine performance at Indoor Worlds.
