2018 Gold Coast Diary: Tom Walsh takes shot put gold, from Len Johnson for IAAF

Tom Walsh, Champion of 2017 World Outdoors, 2018 World Indoors and 2018 Commonwealth Games! photo by PhotoRun.net

In my small town in Wisconsin, Fort Atkinson, I am building a statue of Tom Walsh, champion of his shot put domain, in my back yard. It will be built out of Wisconsin butter and cheese, as I have had to give up animal products and have pounds of the afore-mentioned products. We used a piece by Len Johnson, done for the IAAF website. We thank Len for his thoughtful writing and the IAAF for allowing us to use pieces of articles with atribution and a small shipment of Wisconsin dairy products.

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The shot put piece is below. And yes, Tom Walsh, we worship you!

Oh, one final thought. In this post factual world, make sure you read your favorite athletics site each and every day!

Tom Walsh, King of his domain, photo by PhotoRun.net

Valerie Adams will return to international competition at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games after the birth of her first child. Great as the venerable Dame Valerie’s record is, she may have to add to it to re-establish herself as New Zealand’s best shot putter.

Tom Walsh – Tom Terrific – added one of the two titles missing from his resume when he won the men’s shot put on the second day of competition at Carrara Stadium. Since 2014, Walsh has acquired a world championships gold medal, two world indoor titles and Olympic bronze medal and, now, a Commonwealth gold.

All that is missing is the Olympic title, and who is to say the 26-year-old will not rectify that at Tokyo 2020.

Walsh was over a metre short of his Games record 22.45m in qualifying the previous day. It says a lot about his recent form that you can be mildly disappointed with a throw of ‘only’ 21.41m, but there it is.

So far in 2018, Walsh has set an outdoor Commonwealth record 22.67m, won the World Indoor Championship, and had nine competitions (including qualifying here) with just one below 21 metres. And that one produced a 20.99m.

To read the fine ENTIRE article by Len Johnson please click here: https://www.iaaf.org/news/report/walsh-simbine-ahye-commonwealth-games-day-2