{"id":2576,"date":"2019-07-01T09:04:06","date_gmt":"2019-07-01T14:04:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mcthrows.com\/?p=2576"},"modified":"2026-01-08T09:40:52","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T15:40:52","slug":"the-glide-is-dead-the-glide-is-hang-on-chinas-gong-dominates-the-2019-pre-classic-womens-shot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mcthrows.com\/?p=2576","title":{"rendered":"The glide is dead! The glide is…Hang on…China\u2019s Gong dominates the 2019 Pre Classic Women\u2019s Shot"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I\u2019m old enough to remember an era\u2014the Pleistocene maybe\u2014when it seemed perfectly right and natural for high jumpers to go over the bar stomach first. The straddle technique, I think they called it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then Dick Fosbury came along and flew over the bar backwards and the straddle went the way of the steam engine, the rotary phone, and politeness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So thorough and abrupt was the transition that the term \u201cFosbury flop\u201d was adopted then dropped seemingly over night. We now just call it \u201chigh jumping.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shot putting has been undergoing a similar if more gradual transition from the glide technique to the spin. If memory serves, the first Olympics to feature a rotational thrower was Montreal in 1976. Male spinners took Olympic gold in 1996, 2000, and 2004, but then Polish glider Tomasz Majewski led a counter revolution, winning in Beijing and London. Germany\u2019s David Storl did his part to hold back the rotational tide by winning World Championship gold in 2011 and 2013. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Storl is the last male glider who still gets invited to competitions like Sunday\u2019s Prefontaine Classic. An injury prevented him from making the trip to Stanford\u2019s Cobb Track and Angell Field, but had he come he\u2019d have cut a lonely figure, a tall and relatively svelte glider surrounded by a pack of beefy, turbocharged spinners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The transition has been slower among the women. No female spinner has ever won an Olympic or World Championship gold. Many fine throwers have adopted the rotational technique, with the American Jill Camarena-Williams first among them to medal at a major championships when she won silver at the Daegu Worlds. After that, Hungary\u2019s Anita Marton nabbed Rio bronze and London 2017 silver, and just last year Jamaican Danielle Thomas-Dodd took second at World Indoors, but the likes of New Zealand\u2019s Valeri Adams, Germany\u2019s Christina Schwanitz, China\u2019s Lijiao Gong and American great Michelle Carter have maintained the glider monopoly on gold medals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is possible, however, that women\u2019s shot putting may have found its Fosbury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The American Chase Ealey glided her way to a successful collegiate career, finishing second at the 2016 NCAA Championships. But after two lackluster seasons as a pro, she switched to the rotational technique last September and is now one of the top putters in the world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After posting a 2018 season best of 17.78m, she has, in 2019 thrown at least nineteen meters in eight different competitions, including yesterday at the Pre when she hit 19.23m to take third behind Gong and Thomas-Dodd. (Full results for the women\u2019s shot can be found here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I ask you, if Ealey could add two meters to her average throw and vault herself into the elite level of the event merely by switching to the spin, shouldn\u2019t every glider make the change?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apparently, it\u2019s a little more complicated than that. In this post-comp interview<\/a>, Ealey discusses her glide-to-spin journey, her prosperous coach\/athlete partnership with former World Indoor shot champion Ryan Whiting, and why taking long walks while wearing throwing shoes might be beneficial. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watching Gong (here<\/a> she is sharpening her technique on Saturday) also makes one realize that the glide is not going the way of the dodo bird any time soon. The simplicity of her technique, and her mastery of it, allowed her to put together this series yesterday: 19.00m, 19.46m, 19.55m, 19.52m, 19.79m, F. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That kind of consistency is going to make her very hard to beat in Doha, and is something that may never be available to rotational throwers like Ealey and Thomas-Dodd. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ealey\u2019s series featured four fouls. Thomas-Dodd was more consistent, producing three throws over nineteen meters (with a best of 19.26m). She seemed close to knocking out a big throw\u2014in the words of her coach, Nathan Fanger, \u201chad she stayed on the ball through the release\u201d she could have reached the 19.60m range.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But to put it crudely, spinners throw far by hauling butt (take a look at this practice throw<\/a> by Thomas-Dodd from Saturday) and hauling butt while maintaining precision is no easy task<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So the glide\/spin debate will likely rage on a while longer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One matter that is not up for debate is the remarkable graciousness of Michelle Carter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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She is far from being in top form (she finished 6th yesterday with a best of 18.21m) but as always she took time after the competition to share some thoughts<\/a> about her season. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In that interview, you\u2019ll hear her refer to her \u201cYou Throw Girl\u201d camp and an upcoming competition she is hosting. Check out her website<\/a> for more info.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next up for Carter and Ealey is a trip to Des Moines at the end of July where they will fight for a chance to lock horns with Gong in Doha.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you happen to pass through Tucson and spot Ealey out for a walk in her throwing shoes, please know that it is all part of the plan to finally get a female spinner to the top of the podium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I\u2019m old enough to remember an era\u2014the Pleistocene maybe\u2014when it seemed perfectly right and natural for high jumpers to go over the bar stomach first. The straddle technique, I think they called it. Then Dick Fosbury came along and flew over the bar backwards and the straddle went the way of the steam engine, the … Continue reading The glide is dead! The glide is…Hang on…China\u2019s Gong dominates the 2019 Pre Classic Women\u2019s Shot<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-shot-put"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8knIb-Fy","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mcthrows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mcthrows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mcthrows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcthrows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcthrows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mcthrows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2576\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mcthrows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcthrows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcthrows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}