How the U.S. used golf technology to dominate shot put -

TOKYO — In May, after a track and field meet called the Tucson Elite Classic, Phil Cheetham showed Ryan Crouser the future. This, Cheetham told Crouser with pure confidence, is how he would set the shot put world record.

Cheetham’s version of a crystal ball was an Excel spreadsheet. The spreadsheet contained a matrix of distances, launch angles and speeds. Cheetham, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee’s director of sport technology, created it using radar tracking systems from TrackMan and FlightScope. The high-tech devices professional golfers employed to hone their swings, it turned out, could make an impact on a sport that has been contested, in some form, since one cave man challenged another to a rock-throwing contest.

Cheetham showed Crouser data that a FlightScope device had culled from the throws he made in Tucson. He had thrown the shot about 14½ meters per second and released it at a 33-degree angle. It had traveled more than 23 meters, making him the third man in history to surpass that mark. Cheetham explained that if Crouser could make the same throw but launch the shot closer to 35 degrees, he would heave a 16-pound iron ball farther than any human in history.

In one sense, Crouser’s world record heave would be the culmination of genetic fortune, decades of labor, years of refinement and one primal display of power. In another, it was just math. At the U.S. Olympic trials in June, Crouser flung the shot about 14½ meters per second and raised his arms over his head. He knew immediately. The shot splashed into the dirt 23.37 meters (76 feet 8¼ inches) away, about 10 inches longer than the record. When Cheetham later analyzed the data, he saw the launch angle: 34.8 degrees.

The United States entered the Tokyo Olympics in a golden age for throwing projectiles shaped like balls. Crouser and Michelle Carter won shot put gold medals at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics. Shot putter Joe Kovacs and hammer thrower DeAnna Price won world championships in 2019. At the trials, Crouser set a world record and Price moved to second on the all-time list.

The generation coincided with the United States’ adoption of TrackMan and FlightScope radar technology. In a sport where six inches can separate greatness from mediocrity, every small edge matters.

“I’ll never come in and say, ‘Oh, it was this technology that allowed Ryan Crouser to set the world record,’ ” said Scott Riewald, the USOPC senior director of high performance projects. “But do I believe that it helped him get to that point? Absolutely.”

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The project began in disappointment. At the 2012 London Olympics, American throwers won a single medal: Reese Hoffa’s bronze in shot put. Leaders at USA Track & Field and the USOPC believed they had let down their throwers, that their talent had not been fully realized.

The USOPC’s high performance team and USA Track & Field requested a grant from the USOPC’s fund devoted to technology and innovation, supported in large part by Silicon Valley executives. They sought a way to quantify how and why throwers succeeded. They went to TrackMan, whose devices had started to populate PGA driving ranges. TrackMan agreed to alter the code in its device and sell it to the USOPC, with one year of exclusivity.

An Australian gymnast who competed at the 1976 Olympics, Cheetham had dedicated his career to investigating the human body and how it performed best. He dived into the TrackMan data. The laws of physics state that the ideal launch angle from the ground is 45 degrees. Given the height of shot putters, Cheetham presumed the optimal angle would be between 41 and 42 degrees. When he reviewed the data and studied research papers, he found he was wrong. He started telling shot putters to throw from a flatter angle.

The most crucial insight, Cheetham said, could be reduced to three words: Speed is king.

Cheetham charted how angle and speed determined distance. An increase in speed of 1/10th of a meter per second would yield an extra 28 centimeters of distance — nearly a foot. A 1 degree change in angle would yield 10 to 15 centimeters of distance.

Before Bryson DeChambeau started redefining how fast a golfer could swing a driver, U.S. coaches were telling shot putters to maximize how fast they could throw. The way to do that was to mostly disregard what physics suggested about launch angle.

By lowering launch angle to about 36 to 38 degrees — optimal for most throwers — shot putters effectively threw a light shot. When they pushed the shot up at 42 degrees, they turned gravity into a greater factor. Lowering the angle made the shot come out faster.

From the start, many top U.S. athletes took to TrackMan. Aside from the new insights it revealed, athletes and coaches realized it was an accelerant for improvement. Using video alone, a coach would have to wait between sessions to make precise adjustments, and those would be made using only a trained eye. Using the radar at the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, Calif., every throw could be analyzed immediately.

“You understand what your body is doing and how it affects the shot going out,” said Carter, who missed these Games after an operation to remove a benign tumor from her ankle. “So you kind of get that instant feedback to look back at.”

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The biggest challenge, Crouser said, is reconciling physics, sport science and individual technique. Because he stands 6-foot-7, he can get away with a flatter throw, which provides him the chance to create more speed. Crouser’s longest throws are launched around 34 to 35 degrees.

“It’s just kind of figuring out how can we pick up distance using this analysis without getting too in-depth in it and just committing blindly to it,” Crouser said. “That’s kind of the art form to it, where coaching and athlete feedback really combines. It’s figuring out how can we combine what a specific athlete is doing along with the biomechanics.”

Price, the reigning hammer throw world champion, is vying to become the first U.S. woman to medal at the Olympics and the first American to win gold since 1956. She prefers to use radar only at competitions, because she feels too much data at practice bogs her down. It has still helped her.

“I love it,” Price said. “They send us the data so that we can analyze what I need to work on, either my speed or release points. It can break it down so much that you’re able to then implement it into the system.”

While the USOPC was the first to use the technology, it’s no longer alone. New Zealander Tomas Walsh, perhaps the lone man who could challenge Crouser and Kovacs in Tokyo, has changed his form to spin faster and generate more velocity on his throws, which Cheetham theorizes emerged from work with radar. The Germans are proponents.

As information spreads, the edge will go to the countries that best implement it. Riewald envisioned radar throwing data as part of a holistic program. It could be entered into a database that combines a cross-section of information and used to analyze how training, diet, sleep, travel and other factors are interconnected. Did a specific weightlifting routine affect speed? What did she do after eating certain foods compared to others? How much sleep did she get before her fastest throws?

“It may be that we learn that everything we’re doing is great and it’s exactly how it needs to be done,” Riewald said. “But our hope is that we’ll find some hidden insights or some windows into performance that may kind of shape or change ... what it is that they do in order to execute those performances.”

The glide method — in which throwers twist their upper bodies to separate their hips from their shoulders, creating an X-shape — has become a relic. Now, the spin move dominates.

At 6-7, Crouser would tumble out of the circle if he spun like Kovacs, who stands 6 feet. “Kovacs literally in training has thrown more than the world record,” Cheetham said. “So there’s two guys that are capable of 23½ meters, and they could pull it out at any time. Crouser is a little more consistent, but definitely Kovacs could do it, too.”

The meeting between Crouser and Kovacs is one of the most anticipated in the event’s history. It will be a vivid display of the United States’ dominance in the present. And for those who look closely, they will see the sport’s future.

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