Valarie Allman’s Magic City
By Mark Cullen
For four rounds the question hung heavily in the heavy air:
Would this be another close call for two-time Olympic discus champion Valarie
Allman at Worlds?
For four rounds, the field was nipping at her heels. Jorinde van Klinken, the Dutch Oregon Duck, trailed Allman by only 13 cm after the first round, 67.63 – 67.50.
There they stood, round after round, throw after throw, deep into the 5th round when Allman unleashed her decisive 69.48, a mark which made the ultimate outcome appear easier than it had been.
“For me, I love to hit it big on the first one,” Allman said, “but it wasn’t until round 5 that I felt like things really clicked.”
“It means so much to me,” Allman said of her long-sought World win. “I think I didn’t realize the weight that I’ve been carrying of missing this title.”
“I have to admit,” she said, “I just felt kind of technically off tonight. The way training had been going, I felt like I was definitely capable of a better series overall.”
Allman has been twice bitten in World Championship finals.
“I think in the past it’s haunted me how some of the competitions have played out,” she acknowledged. “So I just kept trying to stay in my groove... and be ready to respond, if necessary.”
“I didn’t think 67 (meters) would hold, and I knew that when there’s that energy bump that a crowd can give, magic can happen. I’ve seen it happen in the past and thought there was a good chance it was going to happen again tonight.”
Tonight, the magic was Allman’s.
This time, the late round decider was hers.
Ultimately, van Klinken’s first-round throw stood up for silver, while winning bronze was Cuba’s Selinda Morales, who picked a terrific day to set an impressive personal best of 67.25.
In a memorably engaging moment, her thrilled relatives could be heard celebrating across the entire stadium!
Fourth was Sweden’s Vanessa Kamga with a PB and national record of 66.61.
In a remarkably deep competition, the top 8 threw 65.21 or farther.
“For there to be two new medalists tonight shows that there’s a lot of people that are capable and hungry,” observed Allman.
“I think it was at that moment in Doha (Worlds 2019, where she finished a very disappointed 7th) that I realized how amazing it would be to have a moment at a global championship.”
So she and her team made each year’s major – Olympics or Worlds – their “North Star.”
With that singular goal came the ever-building pressures that come with success.
“I think that at this point in my career, I feel so much pressure to win, and I think I felt it even more somehow tonight. “
“A lot of people had told me I had bad luck or was cursed. It starts to play some mind games with you, but I think in my journey, it was meant to be this way.”
Allman is now that rarest of athletes: World and Olympic Champion, and with a complete set of World Championship medals: gold, silver, and bronze.
Rarer still: she has won World and Olympic titles in the same stadium.
Allman loved throwing in front of people in Tokyo this time, as opposed to the empty stadium of the 2021 Covid Olympics.
“I was really hoping that Tokyo could be the city where I became an Olympic Champion and a World champion,” she said. “I can’t believe it’s actually happened. I’m so grateful.”
“The energy of 50,000 people, their excitement, it felt nothing like the last Olympics. It was spectacular!”
“I wish I could just live it over and over again.”
In her magic city of Tokyo.
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