SAINT-DENIS, France — The moment had finally arrived. It started with a parade: large men with large muscles, big beards and big bellies; biceps that threatened to rip T-shirts and 16-pound shots that sailed through the air like paperweights, before landing with heavy thuds.
The giants were headed toward the infield at Stade de France and the Olympic shot put final. Ryan Crouser, the most giant of them all, was introduced last. He waved and implored the crowd to burst some eardrums.
On the video boards, in the upper right hand corner, were two records: the world one (23.56 meters; his) and the Olympic one (23.30 meters; also his). “This promises to be epic,” the stadium announcer yelled.
And it was. The 31-year-old Crouser clinched a third straight Olympic gold medal in the shot put. He raised both his battered arms skyward and accepted every hug that came his way. His competitors delivered most of them, because they knew what he had just accomplished—and all he had endured. As the men wheeled tiny suitcases off the purple track, the crowd serenaded the champion.
Two months ago, Crouser didn’t know if he would make the Olympic team. This week, he didn’t know if he could medal, let alone grab hold of another gold. His body felt better, when he didn’t throw with full force. But how would it respond when he had to do just that in the Olympic final?
Early on Saturday evening, Crouser and his father and longtime coach, Mitch, settled on a strategy that pivoted from their norm: “go a little fast and loose with it.” In the early rounds, where he might typically ramp up, he was more aggressive than normal. He wanted to send a message to his competitors.
After the first round of attempts, the three American shot-putters—Crouser, his greatest rival, Joe Kovacs, and 28-year-old Payton Otterdahl—had heaved their way into the top three positions. For his second attempt, Crouser looked a little bit like Zeus. He kept imploring the crowd to meet the moment. Spin. Slide. Launch. More oohs. More ahhhs. His second throw: 22.69 meters, .05 more than the first one. But Kovacs and Otterdahl weren’t going away. Neither was Rajindra Campbell, a top competitor from Jamaica who worked fairly recently at Domino’s.
The third attempt was the one that sealed it: spin, slide, launch. Only this time, as the shot left his hand, its trajectory pointed up near the moon. The crowd sort of gasped in awe. The thud from the landing might have echoed throughout the stadium. The din was too loud to tell.
That throw: 22.90 meters, the farthest he has launched a shot this season.
This spring, Crouser both tore a pec and exacerbated an already painful ulnar nerve injury in his throwing elbow. He had surgery twice. He competed at U.S. trials having not thrown, even once, before the competition. He still won, still kept his personal three-peat bid alive. After winning, he told relatives, “I’ve got six more weeks.”
They went better than the previous six had. But don’t mistake “better” for “well.” In June, while at dog practice for bird hunting near Bend, Ore., his father, Mitch ticked off the latest updates: Ryan was … in great shape … strong, at his highest-ever bodyweight … with typically high vertical jump numbers. He still couldn’t attempt many throws at all. “Throwing a 16-pound ball for a living beats you up,” he said.
That was the worst part of Ryan’s injury, Mitch said. He still made the Olympics. He was still favored to win another gold. But what always drove him was always inside him, this inexplicable desire to push limits—for himself, his discipline and human bodies. For Paris, Ryan’s innate drive, Mitch says, was, “Kind of been taken away.”
Ryan hired an elbow specialist who primarily works with MLB players. He gradually increased his throwing attempts. He iced and iced and iced. Did physical therapy. Got massages. Meditated. More than strength, Crouser needed the simplest and most complicated thing: improved health. Crouser likes to say that his career, ideally, will be viewed as a monument to longevity, intention and his approach. In Paris, after qualifying, he just needed that battered, brawny body to hold up for one more day. Not even one more day. One more throw, as long as it went far enough.
Everyone understood the stakes. Field athletes might comprise half of the sport’s name, but the field events certainly don’t produce anywhere close to 50% of the sport’s stars. It’s even rarer for a shot-put savant, even the most dominant in the sport’s history, to break through the bar for mainstream appeal. Crouser can bench 550 pounds. He can squat 723. He owns the world record in his event, and he broke the one he set in 2021 last year. All this has made him shot put famous, even track famous. And among the most dominant athletes in the world.
In the final attempt round, the rain all but secured the podium. One competitor slipped on the cement circle, feet banging into the outer ring. Another fell backward, full tumble. The memes will not be kind.
Crouser led by 0.75 meters. The volunteers brushing water from the circle were trying their best, with little impact. Kovacs—the world’s best shot-putter until Crouser came along, then the world’s second best shot-putter, because Crouser came along—was in fourth place. With one throw. In the rain. In other words, no chance. His final throw netted him a third straight silver medal.
Of the 51 best shot puts in history, the two men account for 44 of them. They came here having heaved the sport’s 11-longest-ever throws. Both had pushed each other to greater distances. Both ranked at the very top of their sport. Both should remain there for quite a while.
Crouser later admitted that he sometimes felt a little guilty, for being the “1” in the “1–2.” Both, as Kovacs said, “were part of something special.”
Next: Crouser wants to heal and join his family of Paris sightseers. He’ll bass fish, using that computer of a brain to find elite angles for casting and water patterns. He wants to push, farther and farther, for as long as his body allows him.
On Saturday, it seemed like he wanted to remind more casual sports fans that what he does is never as easy as he makes it look.
“A total commitment,” he called his approach. “Being the first to win three is a testament to the total dedication and hard work that has gone into it, just focusing and realizing, 365 days a year, that what you’re doing for 24 hours, you’re accountable.”
Crouser then revealed that he takes all of 10 days off a year, for vacation. That’s how he made history. And how, in all likelihood, he’ll make more of it.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Ryan Crouser Cements Shot Put Dominance with Historic Three-Peat .
