DeAnna Price (© Getty Images)
When DeAnna Price left the hammer ring at the reimagined Hayward Field at the University of Oregon a year ago, she appeared to be on top of the world.
At the U.S. Olympic Trials, she set the meet record five times, repeatedly broke the Hayward Field record, and twice broke her own American record.
Price became the first American woman to break 80 meters in the hammer and only the second in history. She was undefeated for the season, and the Olympic gold medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and a world record were a foregone conclusion. She was one of the United States’ brightest track and field stars who would be a national hero after conquering the world at the Olympics.
But lurking beneath the surface were injuries that would derail all those dreams and expectations and force the greatest women’s hammer thrower in American history to start almost from scratch.
“It has been an amazing, crazy, terrible year,” Price said Thursday after finishing fourth in the hammer with a season-best of 73.07m at the U.S. Track and Field (USATF) Outdoor Championships at Hayward Field. “That’s about how I can explain it.”
The fact that Price was throwing so well at the Olympic Trials last year was mindboggling considering what was going on. Price entered that meet with a partially torn hip labrum and about a week before the Trials felt some pain in her foot at practice.
“I still threw 80 (meters) at Trials so I was like this is great, I’m ready, I’m going to go to Tokyo, I’m going to win gold,” Price said.
There was no reason to think otherwise. In 2018, Price set the American record with a throw of 78.12m about two weeks after Gwen Berry had set a U.S. record of 77.78m. In 2019, Price improved the American record to 78.24m at the USATF Championships in Des Moines, Iowa, and was unbeaten the rest of the season.
It all culminated into American history at the World Athletics Championships in Doha, Qatar, when Price took the lead on her opening attempt in the finals, improved her lead in the third round and won the gold medal, becoming the first U.S. thrower, man, or woman, to medal at the World Athletics Championships.
Despite the 2020-paused season because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Price rode that momentum from 2019 into 2021. In an April meet in Missouri, she improved her American record to 78.60m. At the Olympic Trials on June 24, she threw 77.10m on her first attempt in qualifying and took the rest of the day off. Two days later in the final, she threw 77.82m, 78.51m, 79.98m, foul, 80.31m, and 78.16m. Five meet records on six successive throws, and American records on three of four throws in the finals.
"And when I got home, I remember my first practice I couldn’t put on my shoe, and I was like, this really hurts,” Price said. “What is happening? After practice I took off the shoe and I’ve got a baseball size swelling on the top of my foot and I knew something was wrong.”
Price had snapped the tip of her fibula, tore three tendons, and fractured her talus. On top of that, when her ankle went, she tore away the rest of her hip labrum. Price met with doctors and hatched a plan with J.C. Lambert, her husband and coach, to see what they could do for the Tokyo Olympics.
At the Olympics, Price was ninth in qualifying to make the 12-thrower final and finished eighth in the final at 73.09m and as the top American with Brooke Andersen 10th and Berry 11th. Anita Wlodarczyk, the world record-holder and a four-time World Athletics Championships gold medalist, won her third straight Olympic gold medal with a best of 78.48m, almost 2 meters shy of Price’s world-leading thrower from June.
"We had to adjust our mindset from 80 (meters) to just make qualifying," at the Olympics, Price said. “OK, I’ve made qualifying, let’s make finals, let’s do that. And I never really had a moment to take that in and discuss it because immediately when I got home, I went straight to surgery.”
As the defending World Athletics Championships gold medalist, Price had a bye into World Athletics Championships Oregon22, the first time the World Athletics Championships will be held on U.S. soil. If Price showed up this week to compete at the U.S. Championships, her spot at WCH Oregon22 was safe regardless of how she did. When she competed Thursday, it marked 10 months and one day since her ankle reconstruction surgery and nine months since surgery for her hip labrum repair.
Price said that with having the automatic bid, her focus turned to getting healthy and ready for WCH Oregon22. She didn’t began throwing hard, as she put it, until March, and prior to Thursday, had had only four meets this season, throwing in competition on March 25, April 1, May 6, and June 3. She won the first three competitions and her season-best of 72.39m was from the season-opener that had her ranked 18th in the world prior to Thursday. Price said her mindset has been to "put all of our eggs in the basket and get ready and let’s go to worlds and do our job.”
With Price, now up to 15th in the world rankings, having a bye to the World Athletics Championships, the U.S. will have four women competing in track and field’s biggest stage outside of the Olympics.
“Now having four women for the first time ever in the United States,” Price said, “the women’s hammer throw is so exciting, and I cannot wait to rewrite history again with these ladies. We are super excited, and we are ready and we’re going to do our job. We’re going to do the best that we can and I’m going to do what DeAnna Price does and that’s throw and give hugs.”
While Price will be at WCH Oregon22, Wlodarczyk, will not. History’s greatest thrower not only has the world record of 82.98m, she also has the top six marks in history and 15 of the top 16 throws. Wlodarczyk underwent leg surgery earlier this month and is out for the season after suffering the injury while chasing down and catching someone who tried to break into her car in her native Poland.
There is still an American at the top of the world rankings in Andersen, who is putting together the best season of her career. Andersen moved into second on the all-time U.S. list when she threw 79.02m on April 30. She’s thrown over 77m in all but one meet this year and has won all but one meet this year.
That includes Thursday when she had the four best throws of the competition at 76.30m, 77.91m, 77.96m, and 76.14m.
“I’ve had a great, consistent season,” Andersen said. “I’ve had a few misses at very big marks so that’s been kind of a bummer, but I just try to take it day by day and just try and build up the consistency, and hopefully the bigger mark will come soon.”
Price said her goal at WCH Oregon22 is to “place in the top six.” Given that and with Wlodarczyk out, the gold medal at the World Athletics Championships could come down to Andersen, Canada’s Camryn Rogers, the collegiate record-holder and three-time NCAA champion for the University of California-Berkeley, and Janee Kassanavoid. Kassanavoid was second Thursday at 76.04m with Annette Echikunwoke third at 73.76m, and Maggie Ewen fifth at 72.70m. Kassanavoid is ranked third in the world and is now third on the all-time U.S. list at 78.00m.
Rogers is ranked fourth in the world at 77.67. Echikunwoke is ranked 11th in the world, and the U.S. depth is so great now Alyssa Wilson, who is ranked seventh in the world at 74.78m and was the NCAA runner-up to Rogers for Texas State, was only sixth on Thursday.
“I never count anyone out,” Andersen said. “I would like to say I believe in my ability enough to get the job done or at least put in a good fight. I would hope to be on the podium and that is my plan.
“It’s a great field and it will be a deep field as well. We have a great group of girls, and I believe in all of their abilities and my ability as well that we can an achieve a high podium standing for the U.S. I think having it at home, too, is going to be a little bit of an advantage.”
In the only other women’s final Thursday, Quanesha Burks won with the long jump her opening-round jump, a wind-aided 7.06m. Burks’ best legal jump this season is 6.77m and has her ranked 15th in the world. The qualifying standard for WCH Oregon22 is 6.82m, and the only women who have that standard are Jasmine Moore, the runner-up Thursday, at a wind-aided 6.80m, and Monae’ Nichols, the fourth-place finisher Thursday. Nichols is ranked second in the world at 6.97m, and Moore, the NCAA Indoor and Outdoor champion for Florida, is ranked eighth at 6.82m.
Tiffany Flynn was third on Thursday, but doesn’t have the standard and is ranked 25th in the world.
"After jumping 7.06, I knew that was it (the winning mark) and so I was very confident,” Burks said. “I was really focused on now, let’s just hold the wind back and focus on getting the standard, so that’s what I was trying for every jump even though I didn’t accomplish that.”
Tara Davis, the favorite, fouled all three of her jumps and appears in danger of being left on the U.S. team for the World Athletics Championships. That team will officially be announced on July 5, a USATF spokesperson said Thursday night.
Davis wasn’t the only favorite to falter Thursday.
Sha’Carri Richardson, favored to make the women’s 100m squad, finished fifth in her preliminary heat in 11.31 seconds and did not advance to Friday’s semifinals. Cole Hocker, the favorite in the men’s 1,500m and the sixth-place finisher at the Tokyo Olympics, was sixth in his preliminary head and failed to advance to Saturday’s finals.
The highlight of the opening day was Fred Kerley running a personal best and world-leading time of 9.83 seconds in his 100m preliminary heat despite easing up near the finish line. Sydney McLaughlin, the 2020 Tokyo Olympic gold medalist and world record-holder, was impressive in easily winning her 400m hurdle preliminary in 54.11 seconds.
In the only men’s final, Andrew Evans won the discus with a best of 63.31m over Dallin Shurts (62.32m) and Sam Mattis (62.25m). Shurts set a personal best but doesn’t have the WCH Oregon22 standard of 66.00m, but fifth-place finisher Brian Williams does.
By Ashley Conklin
