Tom Walsh at the 2019 World Championships in Doha (© Getty Images)
Any sportsperson from New Zealand who competes on the global stage is used to long haul flights. And for shot put star Tom Walsh, it is these long-distance journeys that have afforded him precious thinking time to steel his resolve and map out his sporting ambitions.
“One of my goals is to be the greatest ever shot putter of all time. To do that, I can’t keep getting third. The next 5 to 10 years of my career – or however long I am throwing – I need to win to put my name in that hat and I love that challenge,” he says looking back on a run bronze medals from the most recent Olympic Games, World Championships and World Indoor Championships.
It was as a young prospect where he first started to take stock of his career trajectory.
“I was at World Juniors in 2010 and bombed out (placing 17th in qualification, Moncton, Canada). Jacko Gill, the other Kiwi (New Zealander) guy managed to win, and I was very jealous,” he candidly admits of a time when he was still trying to balance athletics with playing regional level cricket and rugby.
“I was trying to do three sports at once to a reasonably high level and I realised I was going to have to put more eggs in this basket. I stopped playing rugby and then continued to play cricket and athletics.
“Then I missed out qualifying for the World Championships in 2013 by one centimetre. And there’s nothing like a 24-hour flight home to make you contemplate. It was a very disappointing flight to have to take. I decided then to give up cricket and put all my eggs in the throwing basket. There was time to think about things, but time to sort out what I was doing it for.”
Breakthrough in Sopot
And when he made athletics the sole focus, the results came quickly. He claimed a surprise bronze at the 2014 World Indoor Championship in Sopot, Poland, which was both a personal thrill and a disappointment for the partisan home crowd, as it demoted double Olympic champion and home hero Tomasz Majewski to bronze.
“That was definitely my breakthrough,” he reflects. “I threw a PB to get to the final, then a PB on the last throw to get bronze which was the start of people thinking I could do it.
“In New Zealand I was told numerous times by numerous people that Jacko (Gill) was the guy, not me. So that was a big motivator for me. I probably had no right to think it was me. But I thought ‘stuff these guys’ I am going to show them I can prove them wrong.
“Don’t get me wrong, I had put in a lot of training to then, but not true training towards throwing, I put six months in, and I got that result.
So, I said ‘imagine what I can do if I put in a year, two years, four years?’ It opened a lot of doors and got me into pretty much every competition I wanted to. So, I got to throw against idols of mine, like Reese Hoffa, Adam Nelson, Ryan Whiting, Christian Cantwell, Tomasz Majewski. All those guys who had a stranglehold on shot put in the previous ten years.”
A member of the event’s dominant quartet
In recent years, it is Walsh, Olympic champion Ryan Crouser, his American compatriot and current world champion Joe Kovacs and Darlan Romani of Brazil who have emerged as the dominant forces of the event, leading a golden era for the steel ball.
Walsh won successive World Indoor Championships in 2016 and 2018, sandwiching a World Championship gold in London in 2017, plus successive Olympic bronze medals in 2016 and 2021. Crouser is the double Olympic champion and world record holder. Kovacs snatched gold at the 2015 and 2019 World Championships, the latter an iconic record-breaking competition that saw one centimetre separate the medallists Kovacs, Crouser and Walsh. And now Romani has muscled his way onto the top table, winning world Indoor gold this year in Belgrade, ending Crouser’s unbeaten streak at 29 competitions.
“At the Olympic Games. I threw really well (season’s best 22.47m for bronze), but people are asking, ‘why didn’t you throw further?’ It was the same at indoors as well. I think between us, we have changed people’s perspectives on shot put. They expect us to throw a long way every time.”
He is strikingly honest over the current landscape at the elite end.
“Ryan’s probably just a little bit better than us at the moment. His bad day seems to be better than our bad days. I know that I am trying to chase him down and I know that Joe (Kovacs) is too.
“It’s something I didn’t handle that well last year in terms of the competitiveness. I threw ok, but I wasn’t really in the fight. There was a lot of other mental strains with Covid restrictions and testing, I was away from home for five and a half months not seeing my girlfriend.
“I’m not trying to make excuses, but there were a lot of mental strains that came last year. Not only me, but a lot of people. But this year I am feeling in a better space mentally, happier. I feel like I am competing, I haven’t got lost in my own little world. I have figured that out which is a nice feeling again.”
‘I’m like a swimsuit model compared to those other guys’
In terms of physical stature, Walsh is a giant of a man among mere mortals, but in the shot circle, he can look comparatively small standing 185cm compared to Crouser at 201cm or Croatia’s Filip Mihaljević, also 201cm.
“I’m like a swimsuit model compared to those other guys.” He laughs. “The thing is, we all throw very differently. Darlan is an incredibly strong guy and he tries to get into a position and whack the heck out of it. And Joe does to some degree, but moves through positions, but is incredibly strong as well.
“Ryan is very deliberate with technical things and positions and obviously he’s got great leverage that none of us have. Essentially, he can make the shot put travel a little further than the rest of us because of his parameters. I’m more of a timing and speed kind of guy.
“One thing I have learned is that you can never try and throw like someone else. You have to figure out a way that works for you. And sure, taking that from Ryan, that from Darlan, that from Joe can help. But don’t even try to throw like Ryan or throw like Joe. Because if I ever tried to throw like Ryan or Joe, I think it would go like 18 metres.”
Since ‘bombing out’ at the World Junior Championship 12 years ago, Walsh has been able to produce the goods with remarkable consistency, grabbing eight medals at global championships, plus a gold and silver at the Commonwealth Games.
Ability to ‘show up ready’
“One thing I hold dear to my heart is that I know how to show up ready at the championships. I don’t always throw a PB, but there haven’t been many whether its Commonwealth Games, World Championships or Olympic Games where I haven’t thrown a PB or pretty close to a PB. That’s something I am pretty proud of.”
It’s part of what makes the event so compelling and this year’s World Championships in Eugene is sure to offer another intriguing chapter. Crouser and Kovacs are equally adept as Walsh at delivering on the highest stage and it’s why they were able to repeat the same podium at the Tokyo Olympics as in Rio.
Not forgetting the incredible 2019 World Championships in Doha in which Walsh’s area record of 22.90m was only good enough for bronze, behind Crouser’s 22.90m – a PB at the time – and Kovacs’ area record of 22.91m.
“There’s another flight I had to do a lot of thinking on - the flight from Doha. There’s nothing like an 18-hour flight to sort your thoughts out a day and a half after the competition. It was a crazy competition that one. People talk about it to this day,” he says.
Following a trail blazed by Faumuina and Adams
Another large part of Walsh’s motivation comes from competing for the island nation of his home country, in which he draws a lot of pride. Much of which comes from the New Zealand throwers who blazed a trail before him, including now retired double Olympic and four-times world champion Valerie Adams.
“She has been there sporadically through my career. We have trained together. I think the first year I was in Europe was 2013 and I trained and stayed where she was which was pretty cool, and same again last year going into Tokyo.
“Val and I both rub people up the wrong way. We are two alpha characters, both opinionated and - to some degree - you need to be like that to get places in our sport. But me and Val get on really well. I somehow get away with being incredibly cheeky with her and not getting a slap in the face!
“But she has been incredible for our sport. Her and Beatrice (Faumuina, 1997 World Championships discus gold medallist) were the two that brought it into the professional era. Now we have a few top-level athletes, but when Val and Beatrice were around, there weren’t really any apart from those two.
The Commonwealth Games in Birmingham forms another important moment in a busy year for Walsh.
“It is a big thing in New Zealand,” he says. “There’s probably not an acceptable result apart from winning that for me. If I can get myself there is good physical shape, good mental shape, that’s 99% of the battle.”
Walsh’s successes on the international stage has also not gone under appreciated in his home country, where he was once asked to a special ceremony for the New Zealand cricket team.
“Being a sportsperson opens a lot of doors. And about four or five years ago, I got asked to present the caps to them before a test match in Christchurch. I love cricket, I have played with three current members of team - Tom Latham, Henry Nicholls and Matt Henry. We are the same age, it’s pretty cool to see those guys in the team.
“I don’t get nervous from public speaking at all. But I was so nervous. I said a few words about the silver fern (national symbol of New Zealand). I had this wobbly leg, I put my weight on it to stop it and the other knee would start wobbling,” he admits.
But it the shot circle at least, Walsh has displayed unerring sure-footedness in recent years. And the long flights he now most remembers are those of a 7.26kg sphere soaring towards to 22 metres and beyond.
Chris Broadbent for World Athletics
