New Lessons in the Weight Throw
First lets back up. Kamloops has an annual indoor meet called the Van Wryswick Invitational. This year it was on Valentine’s Day weekend and the weight happened to be contested just as we were finishing our second session of the day. Bondarchuk thought it’d be fun if we competed. I threw a result that led me to believe I could make some money at USA Indoors. So I went to Boston!
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Indoor implements have vastly improved in the past 15 years, greatly increasing the difference between the old saying, “however many feet you throw with the weight should be how many meters you throw in the hammer.” Imagine what Lance Deal would have thrown indoors with today’s Tungsten filled implements.
Lance would have thrown it FAR. Precisely the reason I always held that it’s not a real world record until it’s thrown with the old iron ball Lance threw with. I definitely wanted to break his record, but I knew it wouldn’t really mean the same thing unless I threw it with the iron ball. When my PB was 25.12, my best iron ball throw was 24.20.
Every few years weight manufacturing does something new and in turn overall distances improve. I was a beneficiary of one such advancement when we went from the regular yellow Gill balls (which I also threw over 80′), to the Gill tungsten’s, to what we have now. The fact that 35′ weights are now the size that 20′ used to be is a clear upgrade.
Definitely fun to see stuff go far though! Overall, I think it’s good for the sport.