DeAnna Price breaks 80-meter barrier to hammer into history at Olympic Track and Field Trials
06/28/2021 | 10:06:00 | Track and Field
EUGENE, Oregon — DeAnna Price started her season by breaking her own American record in the hammer throw and felt like it would be smooth sailing into the U.S. Olympic Team Trials — Track & Field. Instead, it's been a harrowing journey to the top of the Hayward Field podium. Ultimately she came out on top, breaking the meet record twice and the American record twice to land on her second Olympic team.
All five of Price's legal throws would have won the competition, but her longest, an 80.31-meter (263 feet, 6 inches) heave in the fifth round, put her in rarefied air. The reigning world champion became just the second woman ever to throw the 4-kilogram (8.8-pound) ball-and-chain over 80 meters. Anita Wlodarczyk of Poland holds the world record at 82.98 (272-3) and has 18 of history's 20 longest throws. Price now has the No. 7 performance.
Brooke Anderson (77.72/255-0) and Gwen Berry (73.50/241-2) joined Price on the medal stand and will make up the rest of the team for the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020. Price and Berry were teammates at the Olympic Games Rio 2016. Price finished eighth, while Berry did not qualify for the final.
After throwing at the USATF Grand Prix at Hayward in April, Price returned home to Carbondale, Illinois, and struggled with a mysterious illness — she says it wasn't Covid-19 — that wreaked havoc on her digestive system. Compounded by a recent diagnosis of celiac disease, she lost at 10 to 12 pounds and suffered from severe inflammation all over her body.
"I was miserable," she said. "Honestly there were points when I was looking at my husband [and asking], 'how am I going to make this team?'"
Physical therapy, massage therapy, a strict diet and encouragement from her husband and coach, J.C. Lambert, helped her get back on her feet.
"It took me a month and a half to two months to come out of whatever was shaking me," she said. "It's been challenging, but my body is finally feeling better."
That's an understatement. She opened the competition with a meet record 77.82, breaking the 77.10 she had hit in Thursday's qualifying round, followed up with another meet record (78.51) in the second round. In the third frame, she threw 79.98 (262-5) to topple the American record she had set back in April (78.60). After a foul came her 80-meter breakthrough in round five.
"I don't even know what my final mark was," Price said more than an hour later. "I only saw 8-0 [on the scoreboard]. I was like, 'I threw over 80 meters!' It's insane."
Her sixth throw was "only" 78.16, a mark that just one other American (Anderson) has ever reached.
Now that Price has broken through the 80-meter barrier, the world record is on her mind.
"It is on my white board. It is definitely in the sights," she said. "Today it didn't even feel like a really good throw, and that's where it kinda gets crazy when you know there's more in the tank."
