For Canadian Olympic shot-putter Sarah Mitton, height doesn’t measure heave

A month ago, Sarah Mitton broke the Canadian shot-put record. The 19.58-metre throw at a meet in Hamilton was the first over 19 metres by a woman on Canadian soil.

She remembers a lot about that day: the cool weather, the $100 bet she won with her coach, how wonderfully effortless the throws felt. And this: “On my post about my Canadian record, someone asked how tall I was.”

She lets out a little sigh while retelling the story, but as the shortest thrower in her Athletics Canada high-performance training group in Toronto and one of the shortest on the world stage, she’s used to it.

At five-foot-six, she isn’t the towering figure that people are used to seeing enter the circle to heave a heavy metal ball down the field. But Mitton has found a path to success — and her height helped her get there.

There are two ways to throw a shot put: the glide and the spin, a rotational technique. Mitton was a glider, but when she first met coach Richard Parkinson he took one look and said: “You need to spin.”

That’s because shot put is a physics equation: distance determined by the velocity, angle and height that the ball is released. The spin allows Mitton to use her explosive power to generate more speed on the release, and make up for what she lacks on the height side.

“It kind of evens out the field versus the women who are six-foot-two (and glide),” Parkinson says. “Sarah is a small ball of fast-twitch fibres, tremendously explosive.”

He also coaches Brittany Crew, Canada’s previous shot-put record holder and a two-time Olympian, who is also fast in the circle. Not quite as fast, he says, but taller and a little stronger.

To make the switch five years ago, Mitton had to set aside fears that she would have to start all over again after eight years of training as a glider.

“I was like: Oh, back to zero. Thankfully, that’s not how it happened. I think at my first meet I threw a personal best.”

Of course, it wasn’t always that easy. At first her consistency with the spin wasn’t always there, but success has been slowly building for a couple of years now. She competed in the 2019 world championships, and the Tokyo Olympics last summer. This season, as her coach puts it, “Mitton is on fire.” When texting, he likes to add flaming emojis for emphasis.

She threw a huge personal best to set the Canadian record and has repeatedly broken 19 metres in competition, even in the midst of heavy training.

Next Thursday, she’ll compete in her first Diamond League event in Oslo, and she has already met the qualifying standard for July’s track and field world championships in Eugene, Ore.

Mitton’s rise comes at a time when Canadian women are also finding success in other throwing events. That includes hammer thrower Camryn Rogers, who holds the Canadian record and finished fifth in her Olympic debut in Tokyo; and discus thrower Trinity Tutti, who is closing in on Canada’s four-decade-old record.

“There’s five or six of us at the world-class level, which is amazing to see,” Mitton says. “It’s drawing a little bit more attention to the throws as a viable option.”

That’s important, she says, because women who throw can be role models for youth who don’t necessarily see themselves as runners or jumpers. But Mitton also wants to help dispel the stereotype of what a thrower should look like.

“The misconception that to be a thrower you have to be the kid that isn’t fast, and maybe a bit of a bigger girl, I think that’s really unfortunate because it causes young girls not to want to throw. Because who really wants to fit into that stereotype?”

Mitton grew up in Brooklyn, N.S. and played all the sports on offer at her small-town school. In track season, she competed in hurdles and long jump until a coach urged her to try throwing. “Just add it to the list,” she recalls saying.

For years, Mitton liked shot put simply because she was good at it. It was an outlet to challenge herself in a way that’s easy to measure.

“Until I started spinning, I didn’t really fall in love with the event,” she says. “I’m just a throws junkie now. I used to not follow the throwing world of track and field, and now I hang out at my teammates’ practices because I’m so intrigued with the art of throwing.”

She does wish she stood a few inches taller, though it pains her to say it.

“I hate to say I would like to change anything about myself, and I’ve gotten to where I am just fine without it,” Mitton says. “I think I could throw a little bit farther if I was taller, but it hasn’t been the thing that’s limited me so far.

“I’ve just got to make up for it in other ways.”

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