U.S. Olympic Team Trials - Track & Field Women's Shot Put preview, by Kara Winger
Photo by Oregon Track & Field
Hey track & field fans—TrackTown USA Throws Ambassador Kara Winger here. Let’s talk about the women’s shot put!
The most competitive throwing event on the women’s side - and perhaps across genders - to make at this Olympic Team Trials is the shot put. In the hammer, four women came into the Trials with the 74m Olympic Standard and one achieved it here. In the discus, only three women had the 64.50m mark. One javelin thrower owns the 64m Olympic Standard. Seven men’s shot putters had thrown the 21.50m Olympic qualification distance coming into their competition last weekend.
Eight women possess the Olympic Standard of 18.80m entering the first round of the shot put on Friday. One other athlete lives within the Top 32 in the World Rankings, and would be eligible for the team if she beat enough standard-holders in the final. And two to three more could earn enough points to climb the rankings with great performances in qualifying and finals.
This field boasts the American Record holder, an Olympic silver medalist, the NCAA Record holder, Olympians, World Team members, and a serious stock of upcoming collegiate talent and post-collegiate experience.
Jessica Ramsey had a baby last year. She also won the 2021 Olympic Trials in commanding fashion, and will not only draw on that experience, but dropped an 18.90m performance in the Bahamas this month to come into these Trials with the wind at her back. With that recently-recorded post-baby PB, the Tokyo Olympic finalist has to be feeling confident that her 20.12m overall PB from her last Trials victory (also the Trials Meet Record) is near.
Adelaide Aquilla’s 2024 season has been somewhat of a roller coaster, but the 19.38m SB she recorded at the Suzhou Diamond League came early and seemingly a bit easier than some of her hard-won 2023 results that still put her on the Budapest World team. Adelaide knows how to show up at Hayward Field, where she has won two NCAA titles, made two World Championships teams, and became an Olympian after making the Tokyo team here in 2021. Her personal best of 19.64m is two years old now (she set it in winning NCAAs in 2022), so I wouldn’t be surprised to see this still-young talent make a little jump in an environment she has thrived in before.
The third of three women’s shot put Olympians returning to this Trials competition is Raven Saunders, the Tokyo silver medalist with a 19.79m effort at the 2021 Olympic Games, and 5th place finisher from Rio in 2016 at just 20 years old. Raven returned to competition this May after serving an 18-month whereabouts filing failure ban from the sport by the anti-doping governing body. That ban began on August 18, 2022, and her first mark back on May 18, 2024, was 18.62m, just shy of the 18.80m Olympic Standard. Raven now has two competitions on the season over 19.10m
Oregon22 World Championships finalist and 19.40m shot putter Jessica Woodard achieved the Olympic Standard with 2cm to spare at last season’s Brussels Diamond League, and while her results haven’t been what she wanted this season, she had some solid indoor results, and has been climbing again lately with an 18.39m performance and the USATF NYC Grand Prix. A breakthrough - ilke has happened in this ring for her in the past - at the right time will send her to Paris.
The 2024 Indoor NCAA Champion and the 2024 Outdoor NCAA Champion both own Olympic Standards coming into their first Olympic Trials.
Mya Lesnar, the Colorado State University rising senior, had a breakout indoor season with two February performances over 19m (19.07m and 19.10m). She took the indoor NCAA victory with an 18.53m toss in Boston. While her outdoor NCAA run didn’t mimic her indoor success, she did get back out over 19m to win a conference title for the Rams, and will look to improve on her fifth place finish out of this ring from outdoor NCAAs earlier this month.
Jaida Ross will be a senior at the University of Oregon this fall. She’s from Medford. She threw 19.57m out of her home ring to win her first NCAA title this month, and a few weeks prior, became the first collegiate women’s shot putter to throw 20m, setting an NCAA Record of 20.01m at the NCAA West Regional competition. She was named a Bowerman award finalist this week, and throwers would LOVE if one of those finally went to one of us. A really wild thing about the best NCAA shot putter in history? She first broke the nineteen meter barrier just this outdoor season. I can’t wait to see what her future holds, and that starts in qualifying on Friday.
The seventh and eighth athletes with the 18.80m mark coming into women’s shot put qualifying are two of the most accomplished athletes in the field. Neither has made an Olympic team quite yet.
Maggie Ewen was our last hope for a Bowerman award, when she was named a finalist during her junior year at Arizona State University, the season she set the collegiate hammer record in winning her first outdoor NCAA title. Spoiler alert, she didn’t win the Bowerman, but the next season she won shot put and discus outdoor NCAA titles (and set the shot NCAA record) and was again named a Bowerman finalist, becoming the first thrower of either gender to receive back-to-back nominations. While she didn’t win yet again, that year’s award went to a jumper we love, Keturah Orji (she just made her third Olympic Team), and was the first ever win for the field. Maggie Ewen, notably, got the fan vote. Let’s take that into account ahead of time this year please, Bowerman committee.
Okay tangent tangented. Maggie’s professional career, like her collegiate one, has featured multiple events, but shot put has been her main focus, and she’s had a lot of close calls in terms of international podiums. After her 2018 graduation, she quickly hopped onto the Doha 2019 World Team in the shot put, finishing a devastating fourth with 18.93m after throwing what would have been in the medals in the qualifying round. A dreaded fourth place at the 2021 Olympic Trials echoed that performance at Maggie’s next opportunity to make a team, but at the end of 2021 she won the Diamond League Final, securing her place on the Oregon22 World Team. While she finished 9th at that Worlds, her friend Chase Jackson (nee Ealey) won, and Maggie and Jessica Woodard got to celebrate the first American World Champion in the event as teammates in that final. Maggie put on an absolute clinic in becoming last year’s National Champion, and was over 20m for the first time in her career in 2023 (a 20.45m stunner at the LA Grand Prix), finishing fifth in Budapest when Chase again won gold. So many close calls for one of the most consistent shot putters and magnificent throwers in U.S. history. She deserves an Olympic berth just as much as everyone else in this field.
Chase Jackson (formerly Ealey, married Mitch this January in a gorgeous rural England ceremony) has won the last two straight World titles, becoming not only the first American woman to do so in Oregon in 2022, but proving it twofold in Budapest last summer. At the Diamond League Final at the 2023 Prefontaine Classic, she demolished the American Record that Michelle Carter set when she won Rio 2016 Olympic Gold, recording a 20.76m effort that put the world on notice for a 21m throw from her. She has stated publicly that that is the goal. A proponent of women using rotational technique rather than the (perhaps formerly) traditional glide, her results this season have spoken volumes about where she might be at in a championship season: All three of her Diamond League victories have been over 20m so far in 2024, and while injuries have hampered her in the past, she bounced back from an indoor ailment (and still secured bronze in Glasgow) much more quickly than she has from other issues in previous seasons, proving her veteran status in a new way. She wants her first Olympic berth VERY badly, and her performance in this ring at 2023 PRE has to give her confidence that it will happen.
Other neat stories in this qualifying field (they all are!! Everyone has a shot!! Pun intended!!) are Rachel Fatherly and Monique Riddick of Garage Strength. I will just not stop singing the praises of that team’s support of each other and the rest of the field and event group. They are awesome, keep showing up, and demonstrate the heart of the throws so well. Jalani Davis of Ole Miss is in the Top 32 at 26th, was second at last year’s USAs, and got her feet wet on the Budapest Team at 2023 Worlds. KeAyla Dove is currently World Ranked 38th, and therefore has a chance to move into the Top 32 with great performances this weekend. Her PB from May 2023 of 18.95m would be good for an Olympic Standard if she can do it again in this competition. Cierra Jackson of Fresno State, Jayden Ulrich from Louisville, and Veronica Fraley of Vanderbilt are all throwing both discus and shot put at this Olympic Trials. Veronica will now definitely be an Olympian, after finishing third in the discus final with an Olympic Standard in that event. Jayden will also likely be an Olympian if the bump in World Rankings that she’ll get with her strong performance and second place finish in the final holds up through Sunday. How to celebrate making an Olympic discus team? Throw the shot put! Gabby McDonald-Morris was second to Jaida Ross at outdoor NCAA Championships, and the senior from Colorado State will wear her Rams uniform alongside teammate Mya Lesnar for the final time here at this Trials. Gabby’s 18.66m PB to earn silver earlier this month is just 14cm away from the Olympic Standard.
See the full field here, and dig into each and every story behind the names you see! The future of shot put is here in Chase Jackson, but who will rise again, and who might take up the healm in terms of new talent? We’ll see who shows up when women’s shot put Olympic Trials start with the qualifying round on Friday. Finals Saturday will determine yet another extremely strong American women’s shot put contingent for Paris in just one month.