Tom Walsh poses on the podium during the medal ceremony. Photo / Getty Images
Time for another quick update now that I've got a couple of comps under my belt ? so after Shanghai Diamond League, I went to Phoenix Arizona to train with Jordan Clarke and Ryan Whiting.
There was a two week window between Shanghai and Eugene, so I thought it would
be a smart idea to go there and train with two of the best shot putters that the USA have, and it helps that they are good mates of mine as well. And for a bit of downtime, I had also heard that there were some nice golf courses around there that I could play when I wasn't training. It's safe to say that we had a bit of fun, played a few different courses.
As you'd expect, it was great weather for training. Throwing wasn't quite going the way I wanted it to, but it wasn't far away - still, along with the loading I was under in the gym and getting very close to a best ever clean I wasn't that unhappy.
Then it was off to Eugene, Oregon, for the Prefontaine Classic Diamond League - this is always a really tough event as it's the Diamond League that every American wants to win. Leading into the comp I was feeling a little bit flat, I wasn't sure what it was going to take to make the top 4 or win, so I decided I would just give it my best shot and see what happened.
Coming into the third round I need to throw further than 20.34m to make the top four and get three more throws (I was sitting 5th on 20.20m), I managed to get one out to 20.50 to get another three cracks at it. I did my best throw in the last round again - I finished second with 20.84m, but Joe Kovacs left us all for dead with a huge throw of 22.13m, the furthest in the world so far this year by almost three?quarters of a metre.
I was pretty happy with managing to get out 20.84m, as it was just one of those days where not a lot was lining up for whatever reason. There's a long way to go in the season yet, and things are tracking nicely.
