Tom Walsh injured himself in the men's shot put final. Photo / Photosport
Tom Walsh injured himself in the men's shot put final. Photo / Photosport
By Kris Shannon in Paris
Tom Walsh wanted to leave Stade de France with a medal around his neck.
Instead, his exit was a slow and painful walk around the outside of the purple athletics track, waving to the crowd and wiping away tears, as the men’s shot putfinal continued behind his back.
Walsh progressed easily through qualifying, felt good while warming up for the final and sent out his opening attempt with no issue. But on the second, planting his left foot to release the shot, he “just blew it to bits”.
The 32-year-old staggered out of the circle, hunched over for a moment, and limped to the stands for a consultation with coach Hayden Hall and two more members of his team.
For several minutes Walsh alternated between conversation, stretching and rotating in place, preparing for one last attempt that would tell him what, deep down, he already knew. It was over.
Many athletes in such a position would have never re-entered that circle, staying well clear of the scene of the crime.
Yet Walsh needed to return. He needed one last attempt as a favour to his future self, the one who would be sitting at home in a week wondering whether a miraculous comeback could in fact have been possible.
It wasn’t. The attempt went nowhere. Walsh immediately signalled the end of his participation in the final and started to receive hugs from the behemoths he had been hoping to beat.
In a stadium alive with activity – the world’s fastest women battling for 100m final berths; decathletes arcing javelins through the air; triple-jumpers limbering up on the far side of the track – it was hard to look away from Walsh.
Tom Walsh injured himself in the men's shot put final. Photo / Photosport
Putting on his black tracksuit much sooner than he had hoped, the podium contender left 11 others to contest those three spots and began his lonely walk. New Zealand chef de mission Nigel Avery headed to the bottom of the stands to offer commiserations, while many more seated nearby did likewise.
If those actions were almost too much to bear, putting it into words proved almost impossible. Worse, though, would have been not trying at all.
“I knew that it could happen,” Walsh said, his voice breaking. “A mantra I’ve been going by lately is ‘how do you want to fail’. Because you’re gonna f*** things up at some point in time.
“I wanted to commit to the throw, go after it, and I f***ing gave it a good crack tonight.”
A fully fit Walsh could easily have added to the bronze medals he won at Rio and Tokyo. While world record holder Ryan Crouser has long looked unbeatable, Walsh’s season-best throw of 22.16m would have barely been good enough for silver in increasingly slippery conditions.
It was worth a shot, so to speak, especially when his team had diligently worked to get Walsh into the circle “healthy enough to throw a long way and still have the belief that was an option”.
Once his body betrayed him, that belief counted for as much as the three foul attempts he registered. But this – down the tunnel while divots in the field were still being made – is not the way Walsh is going to leave.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll be back.”
***
Fellow Kiwi Jacko Gill continued in his compatriot’s absence and placed sixth in the final with a best distance of 21.15m. That was an improvement on the ninth place and 20.71m mark he measured three years ago in Tokyo.
The second half of the competition was marred by steady rainfall in Saint-Denis, with the shot slipping from several competitors’ hands and Crouser never being tested after posting a season-best mark of 22.90m with his third attempt.
The 31-year-old became the first man to win three gold medals in the shot put, while Kovacs earned silver for the third straight Games.
Kris Shannon has been a sport journalist since 2011 and covers a variety of codes for the Herald.
