For Two Weeks, People are Going to Care About Track & Field Again: Here are Some Athletes You Should Watch (Part I)
(*This is the first in an ongoing series in the run-up to the 7/29/21 start date of Athletics at the Tokyo Olympic Games, featuring key track and field athletes to watch from the United States of America.)
Brace yourselves, fellow track dweebs: we’re about to get some hot takes on the 8-lane oval and surrounding runways.
The Olympics are almost here!
If The Games(™®™®) actually arrive this Friday (August 23, 2021) and aren’t Coronavirus’d into cancellation, we’re rapidly approaching the one time every four years that the general public will actively and willingly consume track and field content.
This is undoubtedly a good thing.
While it will be a little annoying to have Stephen A. Smith blowharding hot takes about the women’s 3,000 meter steeplechase prelims (“Let me be clear, Max. Emma COBURN HAS A CHANCE TO BE THE GOAT!”) we need to keep this in perspective.
Any publicity for our beloved sport is good publicity*.
(*Please note: unless this publicity involves banning a rising/potential sprints superstar with an incredible backstory and infinite marketability who has an ad with a new Kanye song in it because she smoked something that would make her slower out of the blocks.)
Mercifully for a Usain-hater like myself, we won’t have a singular, flexing, obnoxiously little-too-good non-US runner that will suck up the coverage like some kind of breathless blackhole, bending light and space itself around him.
Bolt did just that. He bolted.
He took his King Midas ass home and retired.
So, who or what should we be looking for at the games this year on the oval?
Let’s start with someone that isn’t on the track. But is going to be going in circles nonetheless.
World Record Holder and Very Large Person, Ryan Crouser
Keep your eyes peeled for the 6'7" 320-pound behemoth from Boring, Oregon who is anything but.
Here he is, shattering the shot put world record that’s been around since people actually believed Bell Biv DeVoe could sing.
The guy has a man-pony, a head of rich, burnished auburn hair, the audacity to be good at sports while having an untucked shirt and tights on, and he is so explosive in the ring that his throws end up launching into the almost-space like they’re a nerd-ass billionaire competing in a galactic dick-measuring contest.
That throw in the YouTube video above? He knew he had just owned ass the moment it exploded from his powdered hands. Imagine being so good that instantaneously you knew you had just broken a 31-year-old world record the moment you put some shot.
Crouser now owns the indoor world record in the shot put to go along with the outdoor WR and will go into Tokyo as the prohibitive favorite to bring home the gold and the US will be looking for another 1–2 finish between Crouser and 2016 silver medalist Joe Kovacs.
What kind of an athlete will we be seeing at the center of the ring, looking for his second Olympic gold medal: a guy built like an all-pro left tackle that can also do this:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CItafKYhExf/
Now, according to some very rigorous google searching and #journalism on my part, I have been unable to determine if Crouser has a significant other.
So, will he be breaking world records and f-proof cardboard beds at the Olympic Village? All I can say is: USA…USA…USA…!
The Men’s Shot Put preliminary rounds begin on August 3, so keep your eyes peeled and your man-buns tightly wound.
Good luck, Ryan Crouser.
The Sha’Carri Richardson Memorial Olympic Weed Fact: The shot put for international men’s competition weighs 16-pounds. Which is approximately $67,000 worth of weed (According to the Beloit, WI policy department) but don’t tell the The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency that.
