Slovenia's Kristjan Ceh competes at the 2019 World Athletics Championships in Doha (© AFP / Getty Images)
Kristjan Ceh has ambitions of becoming a chicken farmer. But first, there are global discus medals to be won.
The 23-year-old goes into the World Athletics Championships Oregon22 as one of the leading contenders in a highly-anticipated throws clash at Hayward Field.
While he has honed his craft most recently under the guidance of coach Gerd Kanter, Estonia’s 2007 world and 2008 Olympic champion, it is the hours spent working on his family’s farm in Slovenia that helped to develop the base strength that Ceh now uses so powerfully in the throwing circle. It helped to propel him to fifth place at his debut Olympic Games in Tokyo last year and he returns to the global stage in Oregon as the No.2 discus thrower this year, behind Sweden’s Olympic and defending world champion Daniel Stahl.
“We have a farm at home, so I worked on the farm and I had the strength already,” explains Ceh, who is now studying agriculture at the University of Maribor.
“When I was in grammar school, one teacher brought a shot and suggested trying it. I was throwing far so he signed me up for a competition and a coach saw me there and asked if I would join. I started in the shot put but quickly changed to the discus because I liked it more.
“My power evolved in training,” adds the two-time European U23 champion. “Because when I came to training I had a natural power, but I couldn’t do one push up!”
View this post on Instagram
Things have changed significantly since then. Now standing 2.06m (6ft 9in) tall, Ceh teamed up with Kanter last October and building on his breakthrough 2021, which saw him throw 70.35m and make his mark against some of the world’s top throwers, he has since improved to 71.27m – a Wanda Diamond League record that he achieved in Birmingham to move to 10th on the world all-time list and improve his own Slovenian record.
The first of his European U23 gold medals was won in 2019, the same year he made his World Athletics Championships debut in Doha, and he retained his title in Tallinn two years later.
“I mostly train in Estonia, not so much in Slovenia anymore,” Ceh explains. “So, I totally changed everything – the coach, the programme, the location. Everything.
“Usually, when athletes make such big changes, they sometimes take a step backwards. But we have moved forwards, which is really good. We are doing good work.
“Before it was hard, hard, hard work, and I think if I would have continued that I would have an injury now. We changed that, now it’s more calculated. We also changed my technique at the start, making a big change to be more static so it is a little easier than what I did before. I think it has worked, for now!”
His performances confirm that is the case. It was at the European Throwing Cup in Portugal in March that Ceh defeated Stahl for the first time and he followed up with wins in Birmingham, Rabat and Rome. But Stahl again showed his strength at the Swedish Team Championships in Uppsala in June, bettering Ceh’s world lead with 71.47m – his second-farthest ever throw behind the 71.86m national record he set in Bottnaryd in June 2019. That came three months before the Swede won the world title in Doha and he went on to claim the Olympic crown in Tokyo.
“It’s a different feeling,” Ceh says, trying to describe the emotion of beating some of the athletes he has been inspired by. “It’s a special one, of course, when you do it the first time, but it’s also a bit weird.
“When I competed with those guys, the first competition I was so scared of them, I felt like I didn’t know how to throw any more! But now it is fun, we have fun together, good competition. It’s good.”
As the saying goes, success breeds success. It is the first time since 2008 that two men have thrown beyond 71 metres in the same season, and another three athletes have surpassed the 69-metre barrier. One of those is 19-year-old Mykolas Alekna, Lithuania’s world U20 champion in Nairobi last year. Like Ceh, another star is on the rise, but the Slovenian remains focused on his own development.
“We are peaking for the World Championships,” he says. “I want to perform there as best as we can, then a month later we have the European Championships, so two big competitions in such close time.”
But building on his Olympic performance must surely be an aim, with medals in mind?
“Maybe it is, maybe it’s not – I don’t think about that so much,” says Ceh. “I just have my focus on the competition and what I am doing there. No pressure.”
Leading discus throwers Kristjan Ceh and Daniel Stahl will go head to head in Oregon (© Getty Images)
It will be his first trip to the United States but he has been keeping a keen eye on the performances at Hayward Field, the country’s track and field Mecca.
“Crouser set the world record there in the shot put, so you never know – if there are good conditions, we could have some very good results in the World Championships,” he adds.
But Ceh’s ambition doesn’t end there. Next year the global showpiece heads to Budapest and then there are also Ceh’s goals outside of the throwing circle.
“I want to have my own farm when I end my career, so I am aiming that way,” he says.
“Right now, I am mostly focused on this season, but of course I look forward to other championships,” Ceh adds. “Next year the World Championships are close to Slovenia, in Hungary.”
And a medal in Oregon, perhaps even gold, would be the perfect launchpad to further success on that stage.
Jess Whittington for World Athletics
