DURING THE ’21 OLYMPIC GAMES in Tokyo, athletes held tight to their phones, praying they would not ring. “Every day,” shot great Ryan Crouser recalled later, “you had to take a Covid test. They only notified you if it was positive, so whenever you got a call you didn’t want to look at your phone because it might have been the end of your Olympics.” Even for the famously unflappable Crouser, the sense of uncertainty, “compounding day after day” was almost too much to bear.
Fortunately, the dreaded call never came, and the ‘21 Games will be remembered by his fans as the one where Crouser took another step towards establishing himself as the greatest putter of all time by winning the second of his (so far) three Olympic golds.
Those Games might also be remembered as the beginning of Valarie Allman’s journey to the top of the sport. It was there that she won her first international championships medal, shrugging off her rookie jitters and the weirdness of the pandemic to blast a 226-3 (68.98) opener that held up for the win.
It was the beginning of a reign of terror which continues to this day. Allman has now won 7 consecutive U.S. championships and 5 consecutive Diamond League titles. She has surpassed 229-6 (70.00) in 13 different competitions, taken medals at the ‘22 and ‘23 Worlds, and become the first American woman to repeat as Olympic discus champ. She has not lost a competition in the past 2 years.
Believe it or not, though, that kind of success and the pressure to maintain it can be harder to manage than the pressure of trying to make your first breakthrough in the middle of a pandemic.
Vésteinn Hafsteinsson, who coached Gerd Kanter and Daniel Ståhl to Olympic and World titles, understands the challenge of entering major championships as the favorite. “The biggest pressure an athlete faces,” he said recently, “is when they are absolutely expected to take a gold medal. When you hear from everyone that you are supposed to win, then anything but a win becomes a loss, and that is tough on anyone, I don’t care who you are. It is much easier to come from down under and surprise everyone.”
Mitch Crouser, Ryan’s father and coach, says that the press plays a role in making life…
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