**With Lance Deal (right) watching on, Rudy Winkler celebrates after launching the American Record at Hayward Field on Sunday. Photo by Tim Healy**

By Caela Fenton

Every athlete faced obstacles during the pandemic, with training facilities closed and competitions postponed. For hammer thrower Rudy Winkler, Covid-19 truly hit home when the athlete tested positive for the virus in early April 2020. He describes having run through the “gauntlet of symptoms,” which ultimately ended up in him taking a month off from training.

“So after that I kind of had to build back up from square one and I felt like that was good in a way...my physical fitness and my mental fitness and everything has just kind of built up since then so I think the hurdles I faced along the way were a positive in a way,” the 26-year old from Sand Lake, NY explains.

And it has clearly been quite the build up.

Winkler threw 82.71m for a new American record, besting Lance Deal’s 82.52m which has stood since 1996. Deal, who was on site for Winkler’s throw, was one of the first to congratulate him, telling Winkler “I’m really proud of you.” Winkler also bested Deal’s consistency record, with five out of six of his throws landing over 80m.

**Lance Deal (front) congratulates Rudy Winkler (back) after Winkler bests his American Hammer Throw Record. Photo by Tim Healy**

Winkler thinks that there is more to come. When he launched the throw that would end up being a record-breaker, he was surprised by how easy the distance felt. “I don’t think that’s it for me,” he says. He’ll soak up this moment for now though. When asked what this record means to him, Winkler responded, “It means the world...I really don’t have any words for it. It’s everything that I’ve been working for.”

As the 2016 Trials champion, Winkler has already come so far. He threw 76.76m to win the Trials in 2016, which was just shy of the 77m Olympic standard. The then 20-year-old was invited to join the field in Rio, as an insufficient number of athletes had achieved the standard.

Winkler describes his 2016 experience as “kind of unexpected” as he was still “immature in terms of my experience.” He says these Trials are a whole different experience, after preparing for five years, including making the 2019 World Championships hammer throw final in Doha.

Winkler’s throw was also a facility record for Hayward Field, a record formerly held by Koji Murofushi of Japan. Winkler calls Murofushi a “huge role model” of his. “I couldn’t ask for more, to live in the same sort of shoes that Koji lived in is a huge honour,” Winkler says.

It has been 25 years since the USA had a men’s hammer thrower on the Olympic podium and close to 100 years since it has had multiple on the podium. Winkler thinks that with fellow teammates, Daniel Haugh and Alex Young, more than one spot on the podium is possible. “We’ve been so consistent this year,” Winkler says, “Everyone today threw a personal best, and that bodes very well for us in Tokyo.”