Athletics News

Rojé Stona beats Alekna to Olympic discus gold

Rojé Stona beats Alekna to Olympic discus gold

Jamaican causes big surprise as he throws Olympic record of 70.00m at the Paris Games to beat the world record-holder

Rojé Stona produced one of the shocks of the Games to win discus gold on Wednesday (Aug 7) in Paris.

Not only did the unheralded Jamaican beat world record-holder Mykolas Alekna of Lithuania, plus a host of other well-known discus throwers, but he did it with an Olympic record of 70.00m.

Stona, 25, has had “rookie trials” for the NFL recently despite not having played the sport at college.

The NFL describes him as “possessing explosive hips and above-average core strength to pair with very long arms and huge hands” but he “looks uneasy running and catching in drills”.

Perhaps Stona will stick to discus after this. He is now an Olympic champion and beat a top-class line-up in the process.

Alekna set a world record earlier this summer of 74.35m amid favourably windy conditions in Oklahoma. Here in Paris he opened up with an Olympic record of 69.97m in the second round but he had no answer when Stona threw 70.00m in the fourth.

Mykolas Alekna (Getty)

After throwing the mark, Stona ran to the side of the track to embrace his coach, the Olympic shot champion Ryan Crouser.

Matt Denny of Australia was third with 69.31m and Kristjan Ceh of Slovenia fourth with 68.41m.

Daniel Stahl, the defending champion from Sweden, was seventh with 66.95m.

» Subscribe to AW magazine here

The post Rojé Stona beats Alekna to Olympic discus gold appeared first on AW.

CLICK HERE to Read the Full Original Article at AW…