Tom Walsh Won Another World Champs Gold – How Far Can He Go With This?
Tom Walsh was already guaranteed the gold at the World Indoor Championships when he stepped up to put his final shot. His first attempt alone would have been enough to win the competition by 69cm… and this was a deep field of dudes. Hey but it’s always fun to finish with a bang so up rocked Tommy and he only went and broke the championship record. 22.31m on his sixth and last. 87cm clear of second place. What a monster.
Walshy thus books his third world title, having announced himself with the 2016 World Indoor gold in Portland before winning another gold at the outdoor World Champs in 2017. He famously had to settle for bronze at the Olympics in 2016 as Americans Ryan Crouser and Joe Kovacs topped him for medals yet ever since then the bloke has taken things to a whole new level. Count a Diamond League title in there as well, don’t forget, to go with his three straight world titles.
Neither Kovacs nor Crouser were at the World Indoors. Neither bothered to contest the American qualifying trials (Crouser’s had a hand injury) so they weren’t here. Even so, the rest of the field was quality, reflecting the growing depth at the top of men’s shot put. Of the 16 finalists in Birmingham, only three are older than 27 years old and one of them was medal contender Ryan Whiting – who didn’t qualify for the Olympics but has thrown 22 metres before in indoor competition so you knew he had it in him. David Storl of Germany was another with big throw potential. Tomas Stanek of Czech Republic was arguably Walsh’s biggest rival here. The lad from Timaru was always the guy to beat, however the competition was strong.
And with his first attempt he popped 22.13m. That basically took half the field out of contention already, not bad for his first indoor throw of the season. Storl briefly put himself second with 21.14 but then Brazilian Darlan Romani topped him with 21.23. Decent from that guy, he came fifth at the Olympics with an area record and would leave this meet with another, topping out at 21.37m with his last attempt. Not enough to win himself a medal, though.
Ten different competitors topped 20 metres, seven of those went above 21 metres. That’s historical already. After three rounds Walsh had added a faulted attempt and another 22.13 – matching his first effort exactly. He led this thing from the very start and never let up. Both Storl and Stanek raised the bar in the fourth by each hitting 21.44m, which left the split for silver based on who had the next best throw - and that was certainly Storl. The German topped 21.08m with five of his six attempts (the other drew a red flag).
Stanek, meanwhile, never got going. He’s got the ability to go much bigger than he showed here. He and Konrad Bukowiecki (Poland) were the only two guys who’d topped 22m previously this year in an indoor event but Stanek, by his own admission, didn’t have a single decent throw by his standards despite the bronze medal (“This is the biggest success of my career but it was the worst competition of the season.”) while the young Polish shot putter finished back in eighth with a best of 20.99. One place behind Ryan Whiting who was similarly off his best for 21.03m.
The top four all got one last throw but the other three were really only gunning for second to fourth placings. Tom Walsh was never threatened and then with his celebratory final go he broke an Indoor World Champs record that had stood for three decades – since before Tommy was even born. It was the fourth best indoor throw of all-time.
Tom Walsh: “I came here to win but I knew that I would have to throw well to beat these guys. It was a crazy competition but I finished with a boom. I came here to retain my title and it is a good feeling to achieve that. The crowd was awesome, especially the last 20 minutes with the crowd so close, and they pushed me to throw far.”
His new indoor record actually tops his record outdoor attempt by 10 centimetres, it was a bloody bomb of a throw. You knew it was enormous to see it leave his hand, you just hoped he’d get the white flag on it. And obviously he did.
Which makes you wonder just how many records Tom Walsh can possibly break. Pretty soon he’s got the Commonwealth Games coming up and he should be able to medal at that one blindfolded and with both hands tied behind his back (figure that out). Most of his toughest rivals are Americans and Europeans. The best of the other Commonwealth competitors at the final in Brimingham were Canada’s Tim Nedow (9th – 20.82m) and Jamaica’s O’Dayne Richards (11th – 19.93m).
The thing he’ll want more than anything is an Olympic gold and it’s a couple years before he gets to make amends there. Crouser and Kovacs both have better PBs than Walsh, as does fellow American Darrell Hill, although Walsh has mostly had the best of him in competition. He’s had the best of everyone in competition, to be honest. Ever since winning that bronze medal in Rio he’s been a superstar and he’s showing no signs of slowing down. His peaks haven’t quite stood out amongst others but his consistency certainly has, particularly in crucial moments.
What we can’t go expecting is a Valerie Adams run of utter dominance. Queen Val basically won everything there was to win for the best part of seven or eight years but Walsh, by random chance, happens to be competing at a time where his event is pretty superb. That’s nothing against Val, who’s the Kiwi Field Event GOAT, it’s just the way it worked out. Three world champs in a row are incredible but that doesn’t make this sustainable. Too many others are capable of doing what Michelle Carter did to Valerie Adams in Rio and tossing that one-off career distance to win.
If that happens, it happens. You can’t complain if you max out and someone else was simply better, that’s sport. However with his indoor record now longer than his outdoor best, you’ve gotta think that since the overwhelming majority of events in his calendar are outdoor ones he’ll have eyes for extending the 22.21m he threw in Zagreb in September 2016. Since the start of 2016, there have been eleven throws better than that in outdoor competition – all by Crouser, Kovacs or Hill. Walsh is building towards something huge with the form he’s been in. 22.50m has to be in his sights, surely.
We’re probably asking too much to talk world records though. Shot put is a complicated event for records, even Queen Val has never gotten close to the records set by Natalya Lisovskaya in the 80s. Similarly the 23.12m that Randy Barnes threw in 1990 has remained untouched ever since. Thing is, Barnes was later banned from the sport for doping. Lisovskaya never got in trouble for that but the whole era of the 80s, early 90s is massively tainted in athletics. Kinda weird that with world records usually fluid as each generation improves on the next, nobody has touched the top six male or top ten female distances within 28 years.
So, no, Walshy ain’t about to break a world record. But he can certainly look to close that gap, why not? That’s gotta be the goal. Keep winning, keep improving. He’s been shattering New Zealand and Oceania records for long enough that they don’t even matter anymore. Time to turn the gaze towards the global and there’s no reason, at his current rate of improvement, that he shouldn’t finish the year with 2018’s top annual mark. The world record’s way out of reach of any current shot putter but, damn, the whole thing’s so frisky at the moment and that’s competition enough in itself. Plus Walshy keeps on bloody winning.
Chuck one 22 metres right on top of an ad and you’ll be helping keep TNC rocking and rolling.