Sprant wrote:
Alright… I’m American, supportive of all American athletes (Sha’Carri, Lyles, etc. etc.), and always want to see all of them do well.
But I always question huge performances that essentially come out of nowhere, like Amusan last year, and Jacobs in Tokyo. To me they heavily imply PED usage. So I hate to be that guy… but a 4 meter PB in the World Championships??!
Can anyone with a discus or general throwing background talk about how reasonable that is?
The discus is a funny event. It is highly technical, beyond being a simply a strength event. A lot of the distance the discus covers is less about raw horsepower and more about how the disc flies, so to speak.
The disc, given its shape, will kind of continue to float onward and outward if the hand positioning and angle of trajectory at release is nailed just right. Just nailing a throw taking this into account, without considering raw strength, can add several meters even for a world class thrower. Even more so if the right big wind comes along and their thrower knows how to leverage it to his advantage. But all of this is actually very difficult to do, and more so to do consistently.
For a young and pretty inconsistent thrower like Tausaga, it’s not unimaginable that she finally dialed everything in at the right time and right place, and that the disc really soared beyond what she had put together before. I understand the suspicion, but sometimes, this is just the kind of magic that makes the sport so incredible.