by Stuart Weir
Ryan Crouser, photo by Diamond League AG
Stuart Weir interviewed Ryan Crouser recently. Ryan Crouser had an amazing year in 2021. He set an indoor world record in January 2021, and an outdoor world record in June 2021. In August 2021, Ryan added a second Olympic gold medal in the shot put.
This is a fun piece.
Ryan Crouser reflects on 2021
2021 was quite a year for Ryan Crouser. He retained his Olympic title, won every competition he entered and set new world records, indoors and out. The secret of his consistency, he told me, was: “I have really found my rhythm and technique. In the past I struggled a bit with being tight but now I’ve just found a technique that works for me. In the past there have been very few tall shot putters who threw with rotation so I didn’t really have a model to copy. But I came up with a technique that’s kind of my own and which works well for me”.
Ryan Crouser and Stuart Weir chatting on Zoom, photo from the Stuart Weir collection
Having won the shot put in Rio 2016 in a normal Olympics, he found Tokyo “a little bit different than my first Olympics to say the least”. Like so many athletes he was just pleased to be there and indeed that there were Olympics to be at. He explains: “It was stressful just trying to manage something that was out of our control, the Covid testing. Beforehand, I was just thinking ‘I hope I get to compete and I am not pulled from the competition by a positive test’. The Olympics simply had a different feel to them. What really sticks with me is that moment walking up the tunnel into the stadium for the final and having the biggest sigh of relief that I had reached a point where there’s no way I could be pulled out of the competition. It was unusual to have a sigh of relief as you walked onto the competition feel rather than when you walked off it!
“But I was just so glad that we were having the Olympics after what happened in 2020, when we were wondering whether the Olympics were just postponed or were canceled. So the main hope was just: ‘please still have the Olympics even if it has to be postponed. Don’t cancel it outright’. So I was extremely happy to have the Olympics and to have an opportunity to compete in a second Olympics. For me it wasn’t particularly impactful that there were no spectators there were still a few people there. It wasn’t completely empty. Also I knew that lots of family and friends at home were watching and I’d had the opportunity to talk to them after the final. So I felt close to them knowing that they’re watching at home”.
Ryan Crouser, 2021 Tokyo Olympics shot put, photo via Peacock TV by Kathy Camara
Crouser was second in the 2019 World Championship. His PR throw of 22.90 was one centimeter behind winner, Joe Kovacs. 2022 gives him a shot at the two global titles he has not won, the World Championships indoor and out: “I am planning on doing the indoor worlds. I’ve yet to do an indoor World Championship. So I’m excited for my first indoor worlds. As far as the outdoor World Championship goes, I think it’s an enormous opportunity for track and field, having the first ever World Championships in the USA. I’m excited that we’re bringing that level of track and field to the US, where we have extremely passionate sports fans, it’s just that they’re not really focused on track and field. So we can bring some attention to it.”
“I think it’s a great opportunity for American athletes as well as track and field in general. For me, personally, I am extremely excited to compete at Hayward Field which is like a home stadium for me. I grew up 2 hours from there. All of my state championships, high school, national team championships, multiple NCAA championships were held there. So it’s a home stadium and a place where every time I really had a homecoming feel. It’s great to have one of the biggest meets of my career and also the biggest meet of the stadium’s history. I am really excited for it”.
Ryan Crouser, photo by Stuart Weir
I wondered, when you are dominant in a discipline, how do you prioritize national championships, world championships, the Olympics and records, national or world. He told me: “I would put Olympic champion and being world record holder side by side. I work as a volunteer coach at the University of Arkansas and funnily enough some of the students were asking me the exact same question. I think it also depends on which world record. With the shot, you’re talking about a 30 year old world record. During that time you’ve had seven Olympics and the world record has stood, so you have seven Olympic champions but only one world record holder in that time. So in the shot put, I think the world record is more prestigious. I think similarly the men’s discus and men’s javelin are extremely difficult world records to get at. So again I would take world record over Olympic gold”.
I asked him if he was planning on breaking (his own) world record. He laughed, adding: “I think I can continue to improve. There’s always a driving force for me, knowing that I can throw further and that there are things I can still improve on. That’s the goal going forward. I think my favorite thing about being the world record holder is that now all I have to do is go out and throw my personal best – I don’t have to worry about anyone else’s best ever throw. So I can throw a PR and say I am the best today that I’ve ever been and now I have the world record I feel I am competing against myself and trying to better myself. I’m not chasing a ghost of what someone else did 30 years ago”.
Ryan Crouser, showing off the 2021 Olympic gold medal, photo by Stuart Weir
Finally, RunBlogRun needed to know about the trademark cowboy hat: “I went to the University of Texas and I grew up wearing cowboy hats. I have a picture of me as a boy with a hat sitting over my eyes because it was way too big for me. So I’ve always liked wearing a cowboy hat and it gives people a way to recognize me”.
