AS SHOT PUTTER Chase Jackson makes her final preparations for this week’s U.S. Champs, she can look back on the first half of the 2025 outdoor season knowing she’s broken her own American Record, taken a huge step toward the 21-meter barrier and maintained her status as the long-launching favorite to win her third straight World title.
All of this has come during a very busy year, with 12 victories in 17 meets since January and a dozen meets over 20 meters. It has also been a year of healing and living her motto of “having a memory like a goldfish” (see below) after not making the Paris Olympic final last summer.
When looking back on the heartbreak of an Olympic dream yet unfulfilled, there’s no way to turn back the hands of time and get back those three unsuccessful qualifying throws. But what Jackson can do is keep refining her mental approach and focusing on what she can control: Putting in the work to make bigger throws possible and zeroing in on the opportunity to become a 3-time World champ.
Her vision for 2025 began to coalesce last month in Idaho, when Jackson returned to a throwers “field of dreams”: The Iron Wood Classic. The American Record 68-8¾ (20.95) came on her first throw of the competition. But the galvanizing breakthrough came the day before: her first 21-meter throw in training.
“It wasn’t really planned; it just kind of happened,” Jackson said. “My husband [Mitch Jackson] was marking, so when we measured it he put it down and looked at me, and I was like, ‘What?’ And he was like, ‘That equals [what we call] the World Record.’ Because it really is. We thought it was so funny.”
The distance measured 69-8¼ (21.24), the same as the PR for 4-time World champ and 2-time Olympic gold medalist Valerie Adams, whose 2011 effort is the best women’s shot performance since 1998. It’s widely regarded as the “world record” considering the overwhelming belief (and in many cases evidence) of the doping from the dominant Eastern European throwers of the 1970s–90s.
“I went to TJ [Crater, Iron Wood Director] after and I was like I told him how far I threw,” she continued. “I’m like, ‘I’m going to throw the American Record tomorrow so make sure you have everything ready.’
“I got so cocky; when I showed up the next day, I saw him and he basically told me he had everyone there,” she said with a laugh. “I was like, ‘Oh, no pressure!’ I guess I talked a big game so I had to do something.”
She did something, indeed. Jackson won her World titles in Eugene (’22) and Budapest (’23) on her opening throws each time (“I tend to do that”) and she had an inkling of what could follow. “I remember telling Mitch, ‘Well, this is either going to keep going up, and it’ll be the best series of my life, or it’s just going to crash and burn. I definitely got too excited.” Four of her five remaining throws were fouls.
Jackson followed that up the next week with a much more stellar and consistent series at the Prefontaine Classic, hitting a near-AR 68-8½ (20.94) on her third throw, reaching 65-2 (19.89) or further on three more and all six 63-7½ (19.39) or better. “I always throw well at Hayward,” she said.
A trip to Europe followed for the Monaco DL and a Continental Tour meeting in Madrid. Until last year, when she and new husband relocated to Springfield, Illinois, she had been living and training in England under Brit Paul Wilson. She continues working with him remotely and had a chance to do so in person during the trip.
Meanwhile, Jackson was beaten by Jessica Schilder of The Netherlands on her final throw in Monaco, but won Madrid with a solid 66-6 (20.27). “The quick turnaround to Europe was just a bit hard on my body,” she said. “I did better than I thought I could. In Madrid I had a huge, ginormous warmup and it just didn’t translate… so yeah, I think I’m ready for something really big, but I just needed a break and I’m kind of happy I get a couple of weeks before USAs.”
While she’s focused on USAs and Worlds, Jackson still dreams of the 2028 Olympics in LA and has achieved a thoughtful perspective on what happened in Paris when she missed qualifying for the final.
“The biggest thing for me was I was running on this notion going into the Olympics where I was like, the more pressure I put on this meet, the more it’s going to affect the outcome. So I need to not treat it any differently,” she explains regarding her outlook going in.
“And I think I set that unrealistic standard, and the problem with doing that was that I can say that all I want, but it is the Olympics. So having the pressure of going as a favorite, I think what I should have done instead of trying to fake it and pretend it wasn’t a big deal, was accept it and then try and go at the meet like that. Instead I kind of tried to fake it till I make it, and it’s not a realistic thing at a meet like the Olympics.”
Enter the “goldfish mentality.”
“But afterwards it was really real for me because what I’ve always talked about — in interviews and my Instagram posts — is my goldfish mentality where you have to have the memory of a goldfish,” she said. “You have to get over it and I think the Olympics was a good push for that for me. It’s easy to say — and I say it all the time — but this was a whole other thing. I have to live by it. That needs to happen for the good and the bad, too; if you just hold to one moment, I think it’s a problem.
“So I think I’ve done pretty well kind of moving on and letting it be a teaching moment instead of letting it drag me down. Now I just use it as motivation to get into a place where I can go to a meet like that, trust in my technique and trust in my mental fortitude to do it.”
Despite it being 3 years off, Jackson doesn’t deny herself in dreaming about LA. “I learned my lesson from Paris and I want to trust my technique and my growth for the next 3 years so that LA is a better experience for me. So yeah, I think about it and it’s at home, I want to win at home. Nothing will beat that, bringing the U.S. a gold in the U.S.
“I’m pretty motivated for LA. I think it’s a good place to have my Olympic moment since I didn’t get it in Paris.”
In the meantime, there’s a threepeat and big marks to chase. “Especially with Paris, I wanted to cement my place as one of the best to do this. I think that motivation has pushed me to train harder and be a better athlete, which I think I have been in the last year,” she said. “This is the year I’m most proud of in how I’ve been training and how motivated I am to stay healthy. It’s really pushed me. I want it just as badly as the other two, if not more.”
With a laugh, she adds, “A threepeat would be nice … because then I could say ‘threepeat!’”
Regarding long throws and record chasing, Jackson thinks all of her championship-contending peers agree Adams’ mark from 14 years ago is the standard, but adds, “I don’t think the World Record [74-3 (22.63) by Natalya Lisovskaya of the Soviet Union in 1987] is out of place for women in the future… It would be cool if it was one of us.”
She explains that the increasing number of women rotating instead of gliding in their technique is a big key. “The men kind of grasped the rotating a little earlier than us… Physics tell us the rotation is the way to go, right? 2019 was the first year we weren’t majority gliders as women at a World Champs… and Eugene was the first time we had a majority of rotators in the final. I think that kind of plays into why we’re a little delayed in getting to the World Record like Ryan [Crouser] did for the men.”
So while Jackson doesn’t think the WR is out of the realm of possibility in the future, her immediate goal is mid-21s (perhaps a 70-footer, which is 21.34) — maybe at USAs and definitely where she’d like to find herself by Tokyo. “I know it’s possible, I just need to do it when there’s a measuring tape and an official there.”
