Ethan Katzberg, of Canada, reacts after winning the men's hammer throw final at the 2024 Summer Olympics, on Aug. 4, in Saint-Denis, France.Bernat Armangue/The Associated Press
Shortly after 8 p.m. Paris time on Sunday, Ethan Katzberg stepped into the hammer-throwing circle at the Stade de France, made four ever-increasing turns and hurled the implement 84.12 metres. And that was it. Olympic gold.
No one came within four metres of Katzberg for the rest of the night. And while he later acknowledged that he couldn’t take anything for granted as he watched the 11 other athletes try six times to beat his mark, Katzberg had a good feeling about that one throw. The closet anyone could come was Hungary’s Bence Halasz, whose best was 79.97 metres, good enough for silver.
“Having an 84-metre throw pop up, I think, you know, for anybody that’s, a big mark, a big number to beat. And, you know, having me throw it felt really good,” Katzberg said afterward. “Definitely released some of the nerves.”
The throw left the rest of the stacked field gaping. “He is a sensation,” said Ukraine’s Mykhaylo Kokhan, who came third with a throw of 79.39 metres. “I believe he can throw even farther.”
And that’s now the question facing Katzberg and his coach, Dylan Armstrong, who won a bronze medal in the shot put at the 2008 Olympics. How far can he throw?
The world record in the hammer throw dates to the era of the Soviet Union when the USSR’s Yuriy Sedykh threw 86.74 metres at the European championship in August, 1986. It’s one of the longest-standing records in athletics.
“I don’t know what it feels like to throw 86 metres,” Katzberg said Sunday. “I’ve got to keep training. I’ve got to keep my head down and focus on the improvement.”
He’s sure getting close. In just three years he’s improved more by than 14 metres. Last year he won the world championship and last April he increased his best to 84.38 metres, smashing his own Canadian record several times along the way.
Armstrong has been passing on tips from his former coach, Anatoliy Bondarchuk, a Ukrainian who won gold in the event at the 1972 Games for the Soviet Union and later coached Sedykh. “So that’s where I’ve learned all my kind of stuff for Ethan,” Armstrong said on Sunday.
They don’t like to talk about 86 metres, and Armstrong says Katzberg can still improve his technique. But on Sunday he allowed that Katzberg “is ready. For sure he can throw farther, but you just need a little time to work out the kinks.”
His height – 6 feet 7 inches – gives him a huge advantage, Armstrong said.
Armstrong said that in addition to his tall stature, what makes Katzberg unique is his flexible, long muscle mass, or “stretch muscle” that gives him the ability to move fast in the circle.
He’s also got the right amount of strength. “You don’t have to be like, crazy strong,” Armstrong said. “You’ve got to be hammer strong. There’s a difference between hammer strong and being gym strong, and Ethan’s hammer strong.”
It was Katzberg’s father who got him into the sport back home in Nanaimo, B.C.
He’d been playing basketball as a teenager and trying a few track events when his dad, Bernie, became fascinated with the hammer. He began teaching the event to Katzberg’s older sister. “She started throwing the hammer, and I thought it looked fun so I picked it up. And then my dad just kept coaching us throughout high school,” Katzberg said.
Soon Armstrong came calling and Katzberg moved to Kamloops for coaching.
For the uninitiated, the men’s hammer consists of ball weighing 7.26 kilograms (the women’s weighs 4 kg) and it’s attached to a 1.22-metre-long wire. And Canada has emerged as a global powerhouse in the event.
Canada’s Roman Hamilton, 24, also qualified for the final in Paris on Sunday with a season best of 77.78 and he finished ninth. Camryn Rogers, 25, who will compete in the women’s event in Paris on Tuesday, won the world title last year with a throw of 77.2
“It’s an exciting time right now,” Hamilton said Sunday. When asked how far he thought his teammate could throw, Hamilton smiled and said, “I don’t know, I think we’ll have to wait a few years to find that one out.”
Katzberg, too, is taking a wait-and-see approach. “It’s been a good journey so far,” he said Sunday. “And, you know, same kind of thing. Just keep training to see what I can do.”
But before getting too far ahead of himself, he just wanted to savour his victory on Sunday. “I can call myself an Olympic champion for the rest of my life. And that’s a really special moment and I’ll always remember this day. It was incredible.”