The 2016 Indoor Season in Numbers

Bob Gourley’s final national performance lists for the 2016 indoor season were released a few weeks ago. As we did last year, it is helpful to take a statistical look at the sport as it continues to grow nationwide.

To start with, the number of performers on the national list continue to increase on both the boys and girls side. To receive mention on the national performance list, boys must throw over 50 feet and girls must break 35 feet in the weight throw. Overall, the number of performers increased 23.9% in 2016, driven largely by the girls. The boy’s side showed growth of 8.5%, which is impressive but lower than the double digit growth posted last year. The girl’s, on the other hand, are showing a trend of exponential growth. After showing 27.3% growth in 2015, the number of national list performers shot up another 37.2% in 2016.

The continued growth is again attributable to nontraditional weight throwing states. Populous states like New York and Ohio both have the weight throw as a scored high school event. New York already produced the most performers in 2015, but solidified their lead in 2016 by producing 132 performers on the national list, a jump of 67.1% since last year. Traditional powerhouse Rhode Island had the second highest number of performers and was also up 12.6%. While Ohio added 16.9% to finish with the second most boys and third most performers overall. Southern power Georgia was also up over 10%.

→ Related Content: Take a look at how the hammer throw has also grown across the county with an analysis of the 2015 outdoor season.

The quality and depth also improved. On the boys side, national leader Bobby Colantonio (Barrington, RI) moved up to ninth on the all-time list. In total there were three new athletes in the all-time top 20 and six throwers were over 75 feet which tied the all-time high. After a historic 2015 season, the number of throwers over 70 feet returned to normal levels with 11 throwers over the barrier, including five Ohioans.

Kamryn Brinson (Marist, Atlanta, GA) climbed even higher than the boys did. Her girl’s leading mark ranked third all-time. The girl’s depth improved at all levels and underscored the long-term trend of increased quality and quantity of throwers nationwide as shown in the chart below:

Note: In addition to indoor performances, the statistics presented above include marks obtained with the outdoor weight throw.