Paris Olympics preview: discus

Women's discus

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• Valarie Allman defends title and is top performer on the entry list so far this year
• Sandra Elkasevic seeks a threepeat
• Home star Melina Robert-Michon competes in a record-equalling seventh Olympics

After Croatia’s Sandra Elkasevic won her second Olympic women’s discus title in 2016 and her second world gold in 2017, the next four global gold medals were won by four different athletes. Two of those athletes – USA’s defending champion Valarie Allman and China’s 2022 world gold medallist Feng Bin – join Elkasevic in Paris and based on 2024 form, it’s Allman who leads the way.

Cuba’s 2019 world champion Yaime Perez threw 73.09m – the farthest discus mark in the world since 1989 – in Ramona in April. That improved the North American record of 71.46m that had been set by Allman in 2022 but with Perez not competing in Paris, Allman starts as the athlete to beat, following the season’s best of 70.89m she threw in qualification at the US Olympic Team Trials in Eugene at the end of June. 

After winning the Olympic title in Tokyo, Allman claimed two world medals – bronze at the 2022 championships in Oregon and silver at last year’s event in Budapest. She’s unbeaten this year, with her wins including Diamond League victories in Xiamen, Eugene and Paris. At the US Olympic Team Trials, she followed her 70.89m in qualification with 70.73m three days later to retain her national title and all five of her valid throws surpassed 67 metres.

 “I’m really optimistic about the magic that can happen in Paris,” she said later.

Five other athletes on the entry list have also thrown beyond 67 metres this season: Feng, Germany’s Marike Steinacker, Jorinde van Klinken of the Netherlands, USA’s Veronica Fraley and Elkasevic.

Feng, who followed her world title win in Oregon with bronze in Budapest, won the Diamond League in Oslo in May with a season’s best of 67.89m. The two best throws of her career so far – 69.12m and 68.20m – were both achieved on the major stage, in Oregon and Budapest, respectively.

Steinacker finished runner-up to Feng at a meeting in Wiesbaden on 11 May and that was when she set her PB of 67.31m. Her compatriot Kristin Pudenz, the Olympic silver medallist in Tokyo, was third in that contest and joins Steinacker on the team for Paris.

Van Klinken secured a shot put and discus silver medal double at the European Championships in Rome in June, finishing runner-up to Elkasevic in the latter, and now she will hope to go at least one better than her fourth-place finishes at the past two editions of the World Championships.

Fraley, the NCAA champion, threw a PB of 67.17m to finish second to Perez in Ramona and then placed third at the US trials behind Allman and Jayden Ulrich to secure her place on the team.

After winning her two Olympic crowns in 2012 and 2016, Elkasevic is chasing a third Olympic medal. Should she manage gold, she would follow in the footsteps of hammer great Anita Wlodarczyk, who is so far the only woman to have won the same individual event three times at the Olympics.

Elkasevic set her season’s best of 67.04m to win her seventh successive European title in Rome and finished second to Feng in Oslo.

Seven is also a significant number for France’s 2016 Olympic silver medallist Melina Robert-Michon this year, as she will be competing in her seventh Olympics in Paris.

When she lines up to compete in the Stade de France, the 45-year-old – who was a flag bearer for the host nation at the opening ceremony – will equal the record number of appearances for a woman in track and field at the Olympic Games.

 

Men's discus

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• World record-holder Mykolas Alekna looks to follow in his father’s footsteps and win gold
• Daniel Stahl defends his title against fellow global gold medallists
• Alex Rose could become Samoa’s first Olympic finalist in athletics

The men’s discus at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games will feature a clash between the world record-holder, defending Olympic champion and world gold medallists.

Lithuania’s Mykolas Alekna threw 74.35m to break the longest standing men's world record on his season opener in Ramona in April. It improved the record of 74.08m set by Jurgen Schult in 1986 – 16 years before Alekna was born – and formed part of a series of six 70m-plus throws by the 21-year-old.

Alekna has surpassed 70 metres in three of his eight competitions since and he won at the Diamond League meetings in Marrakech, Oslo and Stockholm. He’ll want to take that form with him to Paris, where he could follow in the footsteps of his father Virgilijus, who won two Olympic titles in 2000 and 2004. Mykolas already has two world medals to his name – silver from 2022 and bronze from 2023 – and he won the world U20 title in 2021.

It’s very much a family affair, as Martynas Alekna – the older brother of Mykolas – will also be competing. They will be joined on the Lithuanian team by Andrius Gudzius, the 2017 world champion.

Another world gold medallist in action is Slovenia’s Kristjan Ceh, the 25-year-old who won his global gold in 2022 and followed that with silver in Budapest last year. He threw 70.48m to win the Diamond League meeting in Doha in May but then finished seventh in Marrakech and fifth in Oslo. He returned to winning ways at the European Championships, throwing 68.08m to take the title ahead of Austria’s Lukas Weisshaidinger, Mykolas Alekna and Sweden’s Daniel Stahl.

Stahl heads to Paris on the hunt for a fourth global gold in five years. The 31-year-old followed his world silver in 2017 with a first world title win in Doha in 2019 and he regained that crown in Budapest last year. In between all that, he won the Olympic title in Tokyo, throwing 68.90m to lead a Swedish 1-2 ahead of Simon Pettersson, with Weisshaidinger getting the bronze. Pettersson doesn’t return in Paris, but Weisshaidinger does.

Stahl started his season with a winning 68.99m in Tenerife in May and that remains his best mark of the year so far. He was third in Marrakech, Oslo and Stockhom before his fourth-place finish at the European Championships, but he clearly knows how to peak on the biggest global stages.

Sitting between Mykolas Alekna and Ceh on this season’s world top list is Samoa’s Alex Rose, who threw 71.48m in Michigan in May to break the Oceanian record and add more than a metre to his previous best. He now sits 11th on the world all-time list.

The 32-year-old didn’t qualify for the final in Tokyo but he achieved Samoa’s first top-eight finish in any event at the World Athletics Championships when he finished eighth in 2022. He went on to place 12th in Budapest last year and will want to make event more history for his nation in Paris.

Samoa has never had an Olympic finalist in athletics and if he were to reach the podium in Paris, Rose would become only the second ever medallist for his nation at any sport at the Games. 

Also looking to make an impact will be Australia’s Matthew Denny and Jamaica’s Ralford Mullings. Olympic and world fourth-place finisher Denny threw a national record of 69.35m in Adelaide in April, while Mullings threw 69.67m in Ramona in April.

Jess Whittington for World Athletics