Amanda Almendariz in the hammer at the IAAF World U18 Championships Nairobi 2017 (© Getty Images)
USA has won just one women’s throwing title in the 32-year history of the IAAF World U20 Championships, but one athlete could potentially quadruple that tally in Tampere.
Alyssa Wilson will make history in the Finnish city by becoming the first athlete to represent the USA in three throwing events at the same global championships.
Having previously specialised in the shot put – an event in which she took bronze at the 2016 World U20 Championships – Wilson has spread her focus more evenly across the three heavy throws in 2018, her first season as a collegiate athlete.
She has strong medal chances in the shot and discus, but the hammer could represent her best opportunity for gold. Wilson leads the 2018 world U20 list in the hammer with her recent throw of 66.99m, her sixth PB of the year. She has thrown beyond 66 metres in three of her four most recent competitions; only one other athlete – China’s Zhou Mengyuan – has bettered 66 metres in 2018.
Zhou has been similarly consistent. She set a PB of 66.57m back in April, then won the Asian U20 title at the start of June with 64.81m and improved her lifetime best to 66.86m in her last competition before the World U20 Championships.
Canada’s Camryn Rogers failed to reach the final in Bydgoszcz two years ago, but she heads to her second World U20 Championships a much improved athlete. She extended her own national U20 record to 65.61m earlier this year.
Cuba’s Amanda Almendaris and Yaritza Martinez finished first and second at the IAAF World U18 Championships Nairobi 2017. While Martinez has the slightly better season’s best, 64.78m to Armendaris’s 64.67m, the long-time rivals are currently level in their head-to-head count at 14-14.
European U20 champion Katerina Skypalova hasn’t been quite at her best in 2018, but if the Czech thrower is able to reproduce her 67.20m form from last year, she could make it on to the podium.
Jon Mulkeen for the IAAF
