Camryn Rogers of Canada competes in the women's hammer throw qualification at the 2024 Summer Olympics, Aug. 4, in Saint-Denis, France. The 25-year-old from Richmond, B.C., bested the competition with her throw of 76.97 metres on Tuesday, becoming the first Canadian woman to win an Olympic medal in the sport.Bernat Armangue/The Associated Press
Canada’s world-champion hammer thrower Camryn Rogers is now also an Olympic gold medalist.
The 25-year-old from Richmond, B.C., bested the competition with her throw of 76.97 metres at the Paris Olympics on Tuesday, becoming the first Canadian woman to win an Olympic medal in the sport.
It had been nearly a century since a Canadian woman earned gold in athletics at the Olympics. Rogers is the first since 1928, when, at the Amsterdam Olympics, Canada won the women’s 4x100-metre relay and Ethel Catherwood took gold in the long jump.
Rogers is the second Canadian to claim gold in hammer at these Games. Nanaimo’s Ethan Katzberg topped the podium in the men’s hammer two nights earlier. Poland is the only other country to win both the men’s and women’s hammer throw gold medals in a single Summer Games.
American Annette Nneka Echikunwoke earned silver on Tuesday, and China’s Zhao Jie took bronze. The Tokyo Olympic champion, Anita Wlodarczyk, finished fourth in the field of 12 women.
The event features powerful athletes spinning rapidly before letting launching the hammer – a metal ball that’s attached to a grip by a steel wire – through the air. The hammer weighs 7.26 kilograms for men and four kilograms for women. The throwers also must remain inside a 2.14-metre-diameter circle when they throw and try not to clip the netting that encircles the thrower. The netting could slow down the flight of the hammer, or even stop it entirely, which happened to several women in Tuesday’s final over the span of their six attempts. The hammer must land inside a taped fairway on the field.
Rogers, the 2023 world champion, went into the competition as the favourite.
Her first attempt in Tuesday’s final inside a packed Stade de France landed at 74.11 metres and gave her an early lead. The Chinese competitor briefly passed her in the second round, then the American put up a leading throw of 75.48, which stood for a while and amped up the drama. Rogers improved the mark to 76.97 on her fifth attempt, and no one could beat it.
The Canadian, who had appeared tough and stoic, revealed a big smile and conversational personality afterward.
“I just had to take a moment and process while I was in the cage, and I heard everyone cheering, and I heard my coach screaming from the stands, and looked over and saw my family just losing their minds,” Rogers said. “That was when it was very clear to me, like, ‘Oh my God, it’s over. I did it, like we did this thing’.”
She reflected on the exhilarating feeling of first throwing a hammer when she was 12 and said, “I’ve never felt this empowered in my life.” She thanked her mom, who had sacrificed for her as a single mother, and the coach who has led her for seven years, training her in California and guiding her throw-by-throw in competitions.
It was just 2017 when she was a high school champion in hammer throw and U.S colleges were calling. She went on to star at University of California, Berkeley.
She’s come to love a sport that takes years to become dominant in and that most people know little about. She was thrilled to see Katzberg win gold.
“To see Ethan go out there and throw freaking 84 metres. Are you kidding me?” she said. “We were like screaming in the Canada [House] lounge.
“Watching how much the throwing community has grown just in my 12 years of being a part of it in Canada alone, I think is pretty beautiful,” she continued. “Because there are so many people who have, like, dedicated their lives to building the sport.”
This improves on Rogers’s first Olympic experience in Tokyo, where she became the first Canadian female hammer thrower to advance to the final. She’d been the youngest competitor there, and finished fifth.
The COC pays $20,000 for every Olympic gold medal. Plus World Athletics has become the first world sport federation to pay its Olympic champions in Paris – US$50,000.
“To do hammer throw, you definitely are not doing it for the financial gains, you’re doing it for the passion,” Rogers said. “But it’s also nice to see that they’re starting to recognize us as a major event to be included along with all the other ones in track and field.”
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