In the clutch, Cantwell comes through

Berlin, GermanyFirst the gold medal then the ribbing. As if it wasn’t enough for Christian Cantwell to haven taken the biggest win of his life, he could not resist teasing the man from whom he had stolen the glory. Cantwell, having held the lead in the men’s Shot Put, lost it to Olympic champion Tomasz Majewski, and regained it, was one ecstatic and mischievous World champion last night, despite an extraordinarily long day.

Friendly fire in London

The incident which prompted the good-humoured exchange between Cantwell, of the United States, and Poland’s Majewski, dates back to the London Grand Prix on 24 July. In the warm-up, a shot landed on Cantwell’s foot, threatening his preparation for the World Championships with a suspected broken toe. Asked at the medallists’ press conference here to explain what happened, Cantwell pointed at Majewski and replied: ‘It was this guy’.

Majewski’s response was instant. “Not me” he said. But, after cutting away to answer a question about the people who had supported him in his rise towards his first global outdoor title, Cantwell returned to the subject of the dropped shot.

“In London, Tomasz tried to sabotage me by breaking my toes,” Cantwell said, keeping a straight face. “Not true” Majewski insisted, butting in. But Cantwell continued:  “Fortunately, he’s a bad aim and he didn’t throw it down hard enough, so it was just a little bruise.”

Now Majewski changed tack. Instead of denial, he opted to play Cantwell’s jocular game. “Next time maybe I need a heavier ball,” Majewski said, filling the conference room with laughter.  If Majewski was upset at having lost, despite entering the circle as the favourite, he was disguising it well.

The two big men – combined height over four metres, combined weight over 280kg – were still bright and breezy, never mind a day that started for them at 5.30am, to prepare for the morning qualifying round. With drug testing to come, they would not be back in their hotel until after midnight.

It took Cantwell’s coach, Brett Halter, to set the record straight on the dropped shot and define their relationship. “Christian, Tomasz - these guys get along pretty well,” Halter said. “They’re great competitors, they’re friends, and that makes it all the more exciting to compete against each other.

“In London, Tomasz came to say ‘hi’ to Christian, the official who was holding shot got really excited surrounded by these two massive human beings, and the shot rolled out of his hand and hit Christian on the toe. At the time it was pretty serious – Christian thought maybe he had broken his toe.”

As worrying as it was, Cantwell still won in London and it was an outcome to be repeated three weeks later in Berlin. The athlete who once carried a reputation for big throws, but without the medals to match, has buried that albatross with his Olympic silver in Beijing last year and by now extending the US dominance of the World title.

It may have been unfair on Cantwell to suggest that he wasn’t a big championships performer prior to Beijing, given his two World Indoor titles, in 2004 and 2008, but his winning effort last night was his longest mark in an Olympics or World Championships. But his 22.03m winning distance was still only the eighth best of his career with all of his better marks recorded in relatively insignificant meetings.

Halter explained:  “Like every professional athlete, he has had to deal with his fair share of injuries. They have been untimely because we have had to chase money to pay the mortgage back home. For a guy that big when he is over here, flying 12 hours to get to a meet, jumping around, sleeping on tiny beds, not eating normal, going home, train, getting ready for another meet, he’s going to break down pretty fast.

“This is one of the first meets we have been able to get to very healthy. If the rest of the world understood what he has brought to competition in terms of injuries they would be scared to death of this man. The bigger the competition, that’s where he wants to be.”

Not that Cantwell doesn’t like small competition too. In an insight to his character, Halter said: “He just loves competition. If it was a game of throwing a tennis shoe into a trash can he’d find a way to win.” 

Although Cantwell competed in London and Barcelona on successive days – Majewski beat him in the latter – he has competed sparingly this summer. His second place in Beijing allowed him to do that.

Beijing silver no disappointment

“I’ve always hoped that he would be in a financial position not to be chasing money over here because it doesn’t lend itself well to be getting ready for big meets,” Halter said. “He is in a different financial situation now (improved sponsor’s salary) following Beijing so he could stay Stateside and we could target our training more towards this meet.”

In Beijing, Cantwell had expressed disappointment at his result. Had this made up for it?  “It will never wipe away that memory – it’s not a memory I want wiped away,” Cantwell said, his tune now changed. “At the time I was really disappointed but, since then, I’ve realised the importance of medalling at the Olympics – any medal. Now I really cherish those memories.”

Cantwell takes home to Columbia, Missouri, the seventh US men’s Shot Put gold medal from the last eight World Championships. He follows John Godina (1995, 1997, 2001), CJ Hunter (1999), Adam Nelson (2005) and Reese Hoffa (2007). Andre Mikhnevich, from Belarus, spoiled the streak in 2003.

World record ambitions?

“We’re still the best country in the world at the Shot Put,” Cantwell said. “Every time you get started back the next year you think: ‘Jeez, what are these guys going to do?’ You can never rest because you are always thinking ‘Hoffa’s going to do this’ or ‘Adam’s going to do this’.

What does the future hold for Cantwell? Coach Halter brings up the World Record of 23.12m held by Randy Barnes since 1990. “I told Christian from the day he got on our campus, when he was 19 – he asked me how far I thought he could throw - that I wouldn’t put a cap on his high end,” Halter said. “But I did say that every record in the world is in jeopardy and I still do believe he is very capable of breaking the World Record.”

David Powell for the IAAF