IF THE SHOT PUT fans in your life seem distracted, a little weepy and obsessed with chocolate, please know there is a reason. Ryan Crouser has announced that he intends to hang up his shoes after the ’28 Olympics, an act which will officially end the current Golden Age of men’s putting.
With Crouser sitting out the ’26 indoor campaign, athletics enthusiasts are left — god of elbows willing — with only two more chances to see him compete on the big stage, the ’27 Worlds in Beijing and the aforementioned ’28 Games, where he hopes to join Al Oerter as the only thrower to earn gold at four consecutive Olympics.
Recently married to longtime partner Megan Clark, Crouser has been busy converting a 5000-square-foot former workshop outside of Nashville into a sort of rustic supervillain lair where he and ’24 Olympic discus champ Rojé Stona will steel themselves for the upcoming season.
“The plan,” he said, “is to make sure I’m healthy through LA ’28, so I’m emphasizing overall fitness and athleticism this year.” Losing 25lb (c11.5kg) has taken some of the stress off of his joints and made it easier to put in the reps necessary to polish his throwing form, which he describes as “constantly evolving.”
“You’re different in your 30s than you were in your 20s,” he explains. “Some things that worked better when I was younger don’t work as well now, but other things work better. I’m constantly adapting my technique to my age.”
He’ll avoid going for “crazy numbers” in his new weightroom, a concession he hopes will allow his right elbow, first injured at the ’24 indoor Worlds, to finally and fully heal. After two years of pain and frustration that had him contemplating retirement, it’s time, he says “to get beyond ‘in pain but able to train’ mode.”
When not training, rehabbing or hanging drywall, Crouser has been deep into planning year 2 of the World Shot Put Series, an endeavor which will keep him connected to the sport after he retires. “Soft launched” at a Yeti (Appropriate!) company picnic last spring, then unveiled to the general public as part of the Drake Relays and Sorinex Summer Strong festival, the WSPS is meant to attract new fans to the sport with a pole vault style format and carnival atmosphere.
Crouser says he knew he was onto something when the spectators at the Yeti gathering showed great enthusiasm for the spectacle. “A company picnic is as close to a random swab of people as you can get. Most of them had never seen a shot put competition before, but they loved it. That was the proof of concept I was looking for.”
The WSPS will open at Drake this year, with further dates to be announced, but long term, Crouser would like to establish a 3-week series of 6-to-8 meets each fall, possibly as part of college football tailgate festivities.
“We need to take our events to different communities,” he says, “and to do a better job of conveying to people how mind-boggling it is for someone to throw a 16lb shot 70ft. If we can use this format to make what we do relatable to the average person, we’ll be able to grow the sport beyond the regular fans. That’s the goal, anyway.”
Guiding Stona to an Olympic title has also given Crouser a taste for coaching.“I don’t see myself in the NCAA system after I retire” he says, “but I do like working with athletes, and the performance side of sports is alluring to me. I’ve learned a lot over the years about mental preparation and recovery, all the different modalities that affect performance, and I think I’ve got some insights that could apply to other sports.”
One such insight, according to his former training partner Erich Sullins, a U.S. hammer Ranker in ’23 and now a throws coach at Cincinnati, is the need to remain patient and determined in the face of adversity. This, Sullins says, is Crouser’s superpower.
Sullins had a ringside seat as Crouser navigated pre-Worlds blood clots in ’23, a torn pec and blown elbow in ’24, and a deterioration of that elbow in ’25. Through it all, he says, Crouser never faltered. “Every time he got injured, he was determined to find ways to somehow keep getting better, keep moving the needle, so that when he came back he’d be ready to compete. With the elbow, that meant doing lots of back and core work instead of his regular stuff. We’d still be in the weightroom two or three hours a session, and then when I was dead tired and ready to go home, he’d put on his throwing shoes and do 30 or 40 turns without an implement. Whatever life throws at him, he just puts his head down and goes to work.”
Hear that, shot put fans? If the GOAT can handle adversity, so can you. Time to set down that gallon of ice cream, and get to work. ◻︎
