Budapest 23 x Throws Preview: Women's Discus
By Kara Winger
Four-time Olympian, nine-time U.S. national champion, and 2022 Diamond League Final winner Kara Winger provides us with her insight ahead of the throwing competition at the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary. Who will be crowned this year’s world champions? Follow along all week for Kara’s previews before tuning in to watch the meet on NBC and Peacock (which will also have some additional streams of field event finals).
Women’s Discus
Olympic Champion, World bronze medalist, and American record holder Valarie Allman won the U.S. national title with a throw of 222’ 0” (67.66m) at the 2023 Toyota USATF Outdoor Championships at Hayward Field. Photo by Howard Lao
Qualification Round: Sunday, 8/20 | Group A – 12:00am PT, Group B – 1:30am PT
Final Round: Tuesday, 8/22 | 11:20am PT
I really think the women’s discus, despite having its very clear favorites, is one of the most up for grabs throws podiums at this year’s world championships. If Oregon22 taught us anything, it’s that favorites are still human and anything can happen if you show up on the big day (Bin Feng of China earning gold with her early 69.12m PB was the upset of last year’s throws at Worlds)!
Feng comes in ranked fourth with a SB of 66.81m, but her consistency at high 65m and above this year, and only one loss (to Valarie Allman at the Firenze Diamond League meeting) are impressive after such a breakthrough moment a year ago.
There are three Germans over 66m and in the top 6 in the world in one season. Claudine Vita (66.36m SB/66.64m PB), Shanice Craft (66.73m SB/PB), and Kristen Pudenz (66.84m SB/67.87m PB) are all real contenders here, as they were last year (all finalists). European bronze medalist Vita has been a 64m thrower since 2017 and is due for a breakthrough on the global stage. Craft is a 3x European bronze medalist and her PB this season was her first since 2014 – I relate massively to that gap in personal bests and know exactly how the confidence it brings will lead her into an important meet like Worlds. Tokyo silver medalist Pudenz knows how to perform on big stages: Her PB came when she won European silver last year.
Laulaga Tausaga-Collins’s personal best of 65.46m to come in second and secure her place on this Budapest team for the USA was my favorite moment of USATF Outdoor Championships this year. Lagi has made the last two straight World Championships finals (and navigated COVID as a collegian at Iowa in-between), and thrown PBs at Hayward in both of the last two U.S. national championships despite fouling out of the same ring at Olympic Trials in 2021. Such a fun force in recent American discus throwing that I can’t wait to watch in Hungary.
Olympic Champion, World bronze medalist, and American Record holder Valarie Allman is everyone’s favorite to win. She has led the world from her second outing, a 70.25m result in San Diego in April, and her dominance and competitiveness are incredible: She’s been known to take Diamond League victories in tennis shoes in the rain, and dealt best with those conditions when she won Olympic gold and in this year’s Firenze Diamond League victory. Despite fouling out of the Bauhaus Stockholm DL, she leads the road to the Final with 23 points. She is very hungry for World gold after her surprise bronze (casually the first-ever American women’s Worlds medal) last year, but has been beaten one other time this season…
Jorinde Van Klinken of the Netherlands just graduated from the University of Oregon, where she finished an undefeated NCAA discus career on June 10, then flew to Oslo to beat Allman and legendary Croatian Sandra Perkovic at the Bislett Games five days later. Her SB 67.05m somewhat pales in comparison to her PB and national record of 70.22m from 2021, but one can understand that class load and elite discus throwing sometimes aren’t conducive, and I am so excited to see what more she’ll do out from under the weight of graduate school. Jorinde finished in a distant fourth at Oregon22, but she seems to me to have been thinking about that close-to-the-podium finish every day since.
While the discus queen Perkovic hasn’t been in her best form this year (SB 65.26m), she absolutely knows how to get the job done at major championships. Two-time Olympic champion, two-time World champion, SEVEN-time Diamond League Final winner. Two-time World silver medalist. She has only competed three times so far in 2023 but her national record PB of 71.41m and extensive experience winning at the biggest meets each season mean you cannot count her out, ever. She has been a 71m discus thrower since 2014, and she’s only 33 this year.
Speaking of experience, French competitor Melina Robert-Michon is 44 years old. The Rio silver medalist became the oldest women’s discus finalist in history when she made the top 12 in Eugene last year. If she makes this final, it will be her ninth Worlds final (out of ten total appearances). She won Worlds silver in Moscow ten years ago, and bronze in London in 2017. Her longevity combined with performance at big meets is something to behold.
Notably absent from this year’s World Championships is Yaime Perez, whose best mark on the year of 67.44m has her ranked decidedly second overall. But after she competed in Eugene in 2022, she defected from Cuba, and is therefore not representing a country at this Worlds. She trains (obviously well) at Garage Strength in the Northeast.
One of the cooler moments in my career was officiating Val’s first American Record and first career 70m throw in 2020: I had torn my ACL for the second time in my career earlier that day, and while I didn’t know quite how bad my injury was at the time, being part of that monumental moment in her career replaced all my personal worry for a minute. It has been a joy to watch her go much further from there!
This got super long (omg!) – but there’s so much talent and opportunity, I couldn’t help myself. Watch and be amazed!