Adam Nelson –
combining Brawn and Brains
Phil Minshull for the IAAF
1 September 2000 - Shot putters are not supposed to be nice guys. It does not fit easily with the image of being able to hurl around 7.26 kilogram spheres of metal.
However Adam Nelson has done a good job of demolishing the stereotype both at home in the United States and also in Europe during the IAAF Golden League meetings.
In addition to having unleashed a massive 22.12 effort—the best in the world for the last four years—to win the US Olympic trials, for much of the last year he has been holding down a full-time job.
After winning the Golden League meetings in Oslo and Zurich, he was in contention for a share of the 50 kilogram’s of gold ingots until a surprise defeat in Monaco.
The money would have come in useful, but Nelson is also among the few Olympic gold medal contenders who can say they earn their income from outside the sport.
Since moving to California after graduating from the Ivy League Dartmouth College two years ago, Nelson has been working in the computer industry.
"I was only going to take two weeks off from my post (as a business development manager with the Silicon Valley software company Icarian) for the US trials but then after Sacramento I managed to negotiate four months leave," Nelson said.
"However after the Olympics it is back to work. I’ll have a week or two off to see family and friends—people who I have not seen for a long time because I have been on the road so much, but then I go back into the office."
It has been his brains as well as his brawn that have contributed to his massive improvement this year after ending 1999 with a best of 20.64.
An almost fortuitous accident lead to personal reassessment. "I tore my right pectoral muscle when I was bench pressing some weights in September last year. It was only a slight tear but it put things into perspective and made me think about where my future lay."
Nelson admits that with his business commitments he briefly thought about giving up the sport but, having moved to California because, "it was an environment where they really understand about the Olympic ideal and dream," he made up his mind to give it one last shot, if you will excuse the pun.
"I decided to take a completely different approach. I came out of rehab in great shape but lighter. So I decided to play to my strengths rather than focus on my weaknesses." "In the gym I did a lot of dynamic work, a lot of plyometrics.
My strength is that I am very fast across the circle," he added.
"My weakness is my size but I just got on with it."
At just 1.83 metres tall and a weight that hovers around 114 kilogram’s, Nelson is dwarfed by some of his gargantuan rivals.
Nelson, despite his relatively slender frame, had expectations of improving this year but not to the extent he has done.
"I was thinking about the Olympic team, but 22 metres? Nobody expects to throw 22 metres. I kinda thought I was capable of it because I’d thrown it in practice a couple of time but this year my main aim was to throw consistently because over the years I have had a lot of little injuries."
His collection of more serious problems include an injured knee in the autumn of 1994, playing American football a few months after he won the World Junior Championships in the sticky heat of Lisbon. A broken ankle in the winter of 1996 was another legacy of him playing the gridiron game, and he also sustained a back injury in the spring of last year.
Now he aims to stay fit enough in the final weeks before Sydney to give him a good chance of securing a cherished Olympic gold medal.
"I can’t say what it will take to win but I think that if I can throw 22 metres again that should get me on the podium. But there are a lot of good guys out there. Belonog is always capable of throwing 21.60, 21.70, 21.80. CJ (the reigning world champion CJ Hunter) is going to be in there and there is maybe Oliver-Sven Buder as well."
If he does get to have the Stars and Stripes raised in his honour then it will be a sharp contrast to where he was four years ago when the Olympics were held in his native city of Atlanta.
He sampled the atmosphere—literally smelling the coffee, as Americans like to say—and although it was not quite in the way he’d originally wanted, it gave Nelson a taste of something that he wanted more of.
"I’d bombed out at the trials—finished last, something like that—but I worked in the Olympic Village coffee shop and dance club," Nelson jokes.
If Nelson does take the gold medal in Sydney then it will prove that nice guys don’t always finish last.
