Price Was Right In The Hammer

DeAnna Price already had the hammer title locked up when she stepped into the cage for her final throw at the 2015 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships. Price notched a strong enough mark three rounds earlier with her heave of 67.33m (220-10) that would have beat runner-up and defending champion Julia Ratcliffe of Princeton by three centimeters.

“Coach (John Smith) always says to keep throwing,” Price told Stu Durando of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch a few weeks later. “Every time [you throw], you have a chance to do something. I was getting a feel, so I said I was going to take my last throw and go after it.”

That turned out to be the right decision, as Price launched the implement 71.49m (234-6), which shattered the previous meet record set eight years earlier by Jenny Dahlgren of Georgia. It also signified only the second time in meet history that the winning mark eclipsed 70.00m (229-8). 

“I didn’t think it went that far,” said Price, who suffered a debilitating knee injury in February 2014 and worked her way back to competition through a strenuous rehab process that spanned nine months. “I was watching the video board and I was jumping up in the air.” 

Price returned to the NCAA Championships in 2016 as the odds-on favorite and threw like it.

A first-attempt effort of 68.13m (223-6) would have won the NCAA title by more than eight feet – but just like the year before, Price took each and every throw. Her best came in Round 3 when she bettered her own meet record by two inches at 71.53m (234-8).

Price continues to throw like a champion, breaking the American record in the event at the 2019 USATF Outdoor Championships with a winning mark of 78.24m (256-8) and winning gold at the ensuing World Championships in Doha.