BUDAPEST.
– It shouldn’t have been possible for a Canadian to win the men’s shot put world championship. This surprised everyone, the Polish Olympic champion and world champion Szymon Ziolkowski sums up the World Cup final and shrugs his shoulders with a smile.
Ziolkowski, 47, gives an interview to Urheilu at the entrance to the stand behind the cage. The Canadian mentioned by Ziolkowski is Ethan Katzbergwho has just won the WC gold with a score of 81.25.
Ziolkowski evaluates the young talent with long experience. When Katzberg was born in 2002, Ziolkowski was already a reigning Olympic champion and world champion.
– It is really special that he wins at such a young age. Moukari men are usually at their best only when they approach the age of 30, Ziolkowski, who won the last medal of his career at the age of 36, reminds us.
Rarity
Canadianness and men’s shot put have not been a winning equation in the promised land of hockey and curling for at least the last hundred years. Before Sunday, the country’s only medals were from the 1904 and 1912 Olympics.
When Katzberg was born in 2002, Canada had only four moukarmen who had exceeded the 55 meters required for the Statistics Workshop service’s registry during that season. The best of the four had just broken 70 meters Dylan Armstrong.
The previous year, Armstrong had made moukari history by appearing at the World Cup level as the first Canadian – although only because the games were organized in Canada and the host country had the right to nominate one representative. Armstrong was the last in the World Championship qualification with a result of 63.89 and switched to the shot put at the end of 2003.
Between 2004 and 2021, Canada produced just one male shot putter, James Steacy, whose level was sufficient for a place in the Olympics or the World Championships. At the end of the period, however, the change was already underway.
Star factory
At the end of the last decade, a program focused on throwing sports was started in the province of British Columbia on the west coast of maple leaf country. Its chief architect was Armstrong.
The one who won silver at the Women’s Moukari World Championship last year in Oregon Camryn Rogers is the first thrower from the program to put himself on the world map. Canada also sent two male throwers to Oregon, but neither of them made it to the finals yet.
Last season was Katzberg’s first on the adult team. Despite that, the leka flew at its best already to 76.36 meters. Although this season the Canadian had time to break his record to 78.73 before arriving in Budapest, there were no expectations of success for him in Canada.
– We only know that he is trained by Armstrong and comes from Vancouver Island. We can honestly say that we didn’t count men’s moukari as a medal event. The sport is very foreign to us anyway, the Canadian journalists waiting for Katzberg in the press area admit.
“Amazing”
The sensationalism of Katzberg’s performance can be seen with a piece of statistics.
Men’s shot put has historically been a sport dominated by Europeans, but even if all the European championships up to 1934 are taken into account along with the Olympic and World Championships, at the age of 21, Katzberg is the second youngest title winner in history in the adult category.
Just an ME man Yuri Sedyh has received gold around his neck 2.5 months younger than Katzberg. This happened at the Montreal Olympics in 1976.
When Katzberg arrives to be tested by the journalists and hears the statistical fact presented by Urheilu, the champion gets confused.
– Crazy! I had no information about that. It feels incredible. This is my first World Cup and I didn’t expect anything. My coach just told me to give my all from the first round. When the first throw (80.18) was successful, it was liberating and gave me confidence.
From the Moukari family
The inexperienced Katzberg immediately got into the deep end of the moukari pool at the beginning of his value racing career.
It is part of the DNA of the World Athletics Championships that the climax of the opening weekend is the men’s 100 meters final, which is contested as the last event of the evening.
The World Championships in Budapest were no exception in terms of scheduling, but even though the title of the fastest man in the world was decided last, on Sunday the shot putters were in the lead.
The majority of the stadium’s 30,000-strong audience had come to watch the Hungarian moukari man Bence Halasz would bring his country the first World Championship gold in the history of athletics. The audience didn’t spare their vocal cords in the highly exciting race, and the decibels didn’t rise as high in the 100 final.
– This is a great place for moukari. The audience was incredible and lived with the whole race, Katzberg praises the Hungarian supporters.
Halasz finally took the WC bronze.
Shot put has been in a similar position at the World Championships only in Osaka 2007 Koji Murofushi thanks to. Katzberg names Murofushi as one of his idols, despite the fact that the Japanese star said goodbye to the international games already ten years ago.
The 198-centimeter Katzberg says that when he was young, he and his father used to watch video clips of Murofushi and the Polish stars who played against them on Sunday.
– Poles (Pawel Fajdek and Wojciech Nowicki) were our yardsticks. Likewise Rudy (Winkler), Bence and (Eivind) Henriksen. Not forgetting Koji, Katzberg enumerates.
Katzberg comes from a moukari family, as his father coached him for a long time. The older brother, who is two years older, competed in the women’s shot put until 2017.
Still, life is not all about swinging an iron rod. Katzberg says that he finds a counterbalance to his types of bread in nature and confesses to being a passionate fisherman. When it comes to sports, he doesn’t fit the traditional Canadian mold either.
– I’ve tried ice hockey and curling a couple of times, but they never ignited like moukari.
– Despite my young age, moukari has been a part of my everyday life for seven years. So I’ve already done a lot of work for this, says Katzberg and points to the medal hanging around his neck.
For the record improvement of more than 2.5 meters seen in Budapest, Katzberg directs the thanks to his coach Armstrong, whose team led by the World Championships was close to the jackpot as a whole.
In addition to Katzberg’s gold, among the Canadians coached by Armstrong Adam Keenan made it to the final and finished 11th. Rowan Hamilton on the other hand, qualified from the final as the first thrower.
After Sunday, it is certain that at next year’s Paris Olympics, the Canadian shot putters will no longer be able to surprise – not even their own.