Women shot-putters and the de facto world record

When Jessica Schilder threw a world-leading 21.09 m in May, I realized that it had been 15 years since a woman had gone beyond 21 m—the 21.24 m achieved by Valerie Adams in 2011. This brought to mind an article from last year’s Track & Field News, which discussed Chase Jackson’s preparation for the World Championships, where she was aiming for a third title (a goal she ultimately missed, with Schilder taking gold and Jackson silver).

One particularly striking detail in that article was the mention that, one day before the USATF Championships, Jackson threw 21.24 m in training. Upon measuring the throw, her husband remarked that she had just equalled the world record. The following day, Jackson threw 20.95 m—still her official personal best to date.

This naturally raises a question: is it reasonable to regard Adams’s 21.24 m as the de facto world record? The official mark, of course, remains Natalia Lisovskaya’s 22.63 m from 1987. (Lisovskaya later married Yuriy Sedykh and, after the fall of the USSR, they emigrated to France, where both continued to compete around 2000—at levels far removed from their earlier performances. Their daughter would go on to represent France in the hammer throw, becoming Youth Olympic champion and surpassing 70 m).

Natalia Lisovskaya

Much has been written about that era. However, so much has changed since the 1980s that any meaningful assessment of current performances requires a more recent frame of reference. I therefore chose to examine results since 2000. The choice is admittedly arbitrary, but a quarter-century provides a reasonable window.

I began by compiling all throws over 20 m since 2000. There are 23 such performances (out of 87 all-time). The first entry on that list, ranked 17th all-time, is Larisa Peleshenko’s 21.46 m from 2000. She had returned from a four-year doping ban, which had already cost her a 1995 World Indoor title, so it is reasonable to set her mark aside. Valerie Adams follows, ranked 23rd all-time with her 21.24 m. In that context, treating her performance as a de facto world record appears entirely justified.

Once one adopts this perspective, the exercise becomes quite instructive. The next post-2000 20 m performer is Nadezhda Ostapchuk, with 21.09 m from 2005. However, all her results from 2005 onward were annulled due to doping violations, leaving her with the unusual distinction of a lone major medal—a silver from the 2003 World Championships. Removing her from consideration places Schilder just behind Adams and just ahead of Jackson.

Next comes Christina Schwanitz, the 2015 world champion, with 20.77 m. Michele Carter’s 20.63 m is bracketed by performances from Natalya Mikhnevich—European champion in 2006, later stripped of her 2008 Olympic silver—and Yanina Korolchik-Pravalinskaya, the 2000 Olympic champion, who was later banned and missed the 2004 Games. Altogether, 6 of the 23 athletes in this post-2000 list have doping violations associated with their careers.

Extending the analysis further, we find 15 women who have thrown beyond 20 m since 2010, and 10 since 2020. A glance at the names shows that nearly all are still active, with the possible exception of Gong Lijiao (the Tokyo Olympic champion, who announced her retirement at the end of 2025 at the age of 36—after an extraordinary 15-year span of 20 m performances: 2009–2024). The current depth at the top end is a clear indication that the discipline is thriving.

And one cannot but remember the ignominious remarks of A. Brundage (who has been honoured by an eminent place in my Gallery of Shame), who wrote:

"I think it is quite well known that I am lukewarm on most of the events for women for a number of reasons which I will not bother to expound because I probably will be outvoted anyway. I think women's event should be confined to those appropriate for women; swimming, tennis, figure skating and fencing but certainly not shot putting".

History has provided its own rebuttal. Women’s shot put is not only alive but flourishing. And while physiques vary, many of today’s top athletes are powerful without fitting outdated or simplistic stereotypes.

This brings us to a more serious issue raised by the notion of a de facto world record: how long can World Athletics continue to ignore the growing disconnect between historical records and modern reality? Adams is nearly one and a half metres behind Lisovskaya. Valarie Allman-Sion, with her 73.10 m performance (obtained in the discus-throwers paradise of Ramona), remains close to four metres short of Gabriele Reinsch’s 76.80 m world record (set in Neubrandenburg, reputed to be the Ramona of East Germany). There is no way un-enhanced women could have established those records, and there is equally no way today’s champions could approach them.

So either WA maintains records that function less as sporting standards than as historical artefacts or takes the bull by the horns. But past experience suggests that such courage is unlikely to materialise. 

A great article in the Deca Passion blog

It has been quite some time that my friends Frédéric and Pierre Gousset had not published a long article in their WordPress blog. (Of course, the fact that Pierre was defending his PhD earlier this Spring and is now preparing for a post-doc abroad is reason enough). Well, the dry spell has ended with an excellent review of the Götzis Hypomeeting, by Frédéric Gousset who attended the meeting. 

I will not summarise the article: you should read it. Don't worry about that fact that it is written in french. Google translation now-a-days is excellent. (Believe me! I checked). You may have already seen reports on the out-of-this-world performance of Ehammer: with 8.51 m he established a new decathlon long jump record and won the event with a 8778 personal best. O. Neugebauer again lost the victory due to a not up to his standards discus throw of 50.77 m (finishing 48 points behind Ehammer) while N. Kaul secured third place thanks to a great 78.21 m throw in the javelin. 

So, go and read the article in Deca Passion.

PS. While there has been a lull of activity as far as the blog is concerned, the Facebook Décapassion page is active and keeping abreast of events. While reading the combined event news there, I happened upon the announcement of the Master Women's Decathlon to be held at the end of the month in Châteauroux. (It is organised by the French Commission for Masters Athletics but it is an open competition). Unfortunately somebody trusted an Artificial Intelligence program for the poster of the event.

And it is horrible! I don't think that there is any element that is correct in the picture. How could the organisers accept this monstrosity? I am not even sure that the bell-tower one can see in the background is a faithful representation of the Notre-Dame of Châteauroux (not to be confused with that of Paris).

The Enhanced fiasco

It began as a supposed revolution in sport—an enterprise not merely challenging the establishment but seeking to dismantle it altogether. Enhanced is built on a radical premise: that athletic competition should embrace medical science rather than prohibit it. When Aron D’Souza unveiled the Enhanced Games in 2023, the concept was deliberately provocative. Athletes would be allowed—indeed encouraged—to use performance-enhancing substances under medical supervision, with world records rewarded by prizes of up to $1 million.

What set Enhanced apart, at least rhetorically, was its financial model. Unlike the Olympics, it promised direct payment to athletes: appearance fees, prize money, and substantial rewards for record-breaking performances. Backed by a range of investors (in contrast to Michael Johnson’s ill-fated Grand Slam Track project, which collapsed under shaky financial assumptions), Enhanced also positioned itself as more than a sporting event. It aims to develop a consumer-facing line of products focused on health, longevity, and recovery—an attempt to anchor the project in a broader commercial ecosystem.

On paper, the vision has a certain appeal. Athletics without the IOC, without bans framed as “outdated,” without the moralising rhetoric around “natural” performance. Enhanced claims to prioritise transparency and medical oversight, reframing enhancement not as cheating but as controlled optimisation. The Games were intended not just as a competition, but as proof of concept: that sport could be reimagined as both scientifically honest and commercially viable. The implicit question was simple: what would human performance look like without imposed limits?

The answer, at least for now, is underwhelming.

The first Enhanced Games, held on May 24 in Las Vegas, fell far short of their grand claims. Instead of a cascade of world records, organisers produced a single headline result: Kristian Gkolomeev’s 20.81 in the 50m freestyle. Even that performance raised eyebrows. There were claims that the time appeared on the screen before the swimmer touched the wall, and in any case Gkolomeev wore a full-body suit—equipment banned in official competition. With those caveats, the legitimacy of the “record” is, at best, debatable.

The track events were even less convincing. Fred Kerley had publicly targeted Usain Bolt’s 9.58 world record in the 100m. His own personal best—9.76, set in 2022—suggested that such ambitions were optimistic even under ideal conditions. Currently serving a suspension for whereabouts violations, Kerley arrived in Las Vegas with bold claims but delivered a chaotic race marred by four false starts, ultimately winning in 9.97. That time would have placed him last in the 2024 Olympic final. The women’s race offered little improvement. Tristan Evelyn claimed victory in 11.25, well short of her 11.14 personal best. It should, however, be said in defence of both Kerley and Evelyn that they chose to compete without performance-enhancing substances. In an event explicitly designed to reward pharmacologically assisted performance, they ran clean—and still won their races, each earning $250,000 in the process.

As for the athletes who did follow enhancement protocols, the organisers provided only aggregate data. They reported that 91% used testosterone, 79% human growth hormone, and 29% anabolic steroids over a nine-week period, alongside other substances such as stimulants and erythropoietin. Some older competitors reportedly outperformed their younger selves, with 21 personal bests recorded across 13 athletes. Yet these gains failed to translate into performances that challenged the global elite.

This leaves a striking disconnect. On one side, the promotional rhetoric of Enhanced.com promises

“the future of sport—where science, athleticism, and progress inspire superhuman achievement”. 

On the other, critics, such as Travis Tygart (head of USADA, who tried to cover the E. Knighton scandal), have been far more direct:

“While those behind the Enhanced Games might be looking to make a quick buck, that profit would come at the expense of kids across the world thinking they need to dope to chase their dreams. We desperately wish this investment was being made in the athletes who are currently training and competing the real and safe way. They are the role models this world so desperately needs and they are the ones who deserve our support—not some dangerous clown show that puts profit over principle”.

If anything, the inaugural Enhanced Games delivered a simpler lesson than either side anticipated. Pharmaceutical assistance did not redefine the limits of performance, nor did it overturn the existing hierarchy. And perhaps most tellingly, two of the event’s winners proved that even in a competition built around enhancement, it was still possible to prevail without it.

Before the modern, the ancient Olympics (part 1 of "the real story of the Olympics")

The genesis of the ancient Olympics is lost in the mists of time. Pindar, writing whole centuries after the beginning of the Olympics, mentions two myths and they cannot both be true. The best known one involves the demigod Herakles, son of the god Zeus (whom the Greek were also calling Dias and whom the Romans called Jupiter) and Alkmene, who among his labours had to clean the stables of king Augean. Augean reneged on the payment and so Herakles defeated him, slayed him and his sons (except one), confiscated the royal treasures, and dedicated them to fund an eternal Olympic festival in Zeus's honour at Olympia.

The other one involves Pelops. I cannot resist the temptation to tell the whole story. It is a perfect example of nice story-telling in Greek mythology. Oenomaus, the king of Pisa, had a daughter named Hippodamia, and according to an oracle, the king would be killed by her husband. Therefore, he decreed that any young man who wanted to marry his daughter was required to drive away with her in his chariot, and Oenomaus would follow in another chariot, and spear the suitor if he caught up with them. Now, the king's chariot horses were a present from the god Poseidon and therefore supernaturally fast. The king's daughter fell in love with a man called Pelops. Before the race, Pelops persuaded Oenomaus' charioteer, Myrtilus, to replace the bronze axle pins of the king's chariot with wax ones. Naturally, during the race, the wax melted and the king fell from his chariot and was killed. After his victory, Pelops organised chariot races as a thanksgiving to the gods and as funeral games in honour of King Oenomaus, in order to be purified of his death. It was from this funeral race held at Olympia that the beginnings of the Olympics were inspired. Pelops became a great king and he gave his name to the Peloponnesus.

However there is a third, more ancient, myth involving again an Herakles. This one was a  Cretan hero, known as the Idaian Herakles, and four of his brothers, Aeonius, Epimedes, Iasius and Idas. They went to Olympia where Cronus had hidden the newborn Zeus. They organised a race (perhaps to entertain the infant) and the victor was crowned with an olive wreath. The four-year Olympic cycle, who was in fact a five-year one (πενθετηρίς) with the first and last year included, is supposed to honour the five brothers. 

Be that as it may, the ancient Olympics were linked to the worship of Zeus. The gold-and-ivory Statue of Zeus (one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World) was located inside the Temple of Zeus in the sacred precinct of Olympia. A temple of Hera (Zeus' wife) did also exist, and in fact its construction predated that of Zeus' temple. Let's not forget that Herakles' name means "glory of Hera" and it was probably chosen so as to appease her, since Herakles was the fruit of an adulterous affair of Hera's husband.

Olympia around the first century of modern era

I am not going to give details on the ancient Olympics. They can be found on the web and if you are interested you can look them up. The aim of this article is to show how the ancient Olympics did not resemble the modern ones. The birth of the modern olympic movement took place in the middle of the Victorian era and, as was unavoidable, it was burdened by that epoch's ideologies. And the latter had nothing to do with the ancient Greek ideals. 

So, let us start at the beginning. First the ridiculous name: Olympic Games. There was nothing "gaming" in the ancient Olympics. They were called Olympic Contests (Αγώνες), and they are still referred to by this name in modern Greek. This is essential. The ancient Olympics, and in fact the whole ancient Greek society, were permeated by the spirit of competition. Only the victory counted. Why do you think there were no second and third prizes? It was not important just to participate as the Baron would like us think. And the word athlete comes from άθλος, a feat, an achievement, something that deserves a prize (έπαθλον).

Ι have already written about the amateurism misconception. Certainly the athletes in the Olympics competed for symbolic prizes like the olive wreath. However, back home, the winners were rewarded with substantial prizes, money, freedom from taxes, even lifetime pensions.

The ancient Olympics were not (until the Roman conquest of Greece) international. They were designed only for Greeks. 

There is absolutely no evidence of all the modern paraphernalia: olympic rings, torch relays, flags, hymns and anthems. 

The sacred fire in the sanctuary of Dias did not acquire a special significance during the Olympics, like the overhyped olympic flame. 

And although during the ancient Οlympics a truce between warring Greek cities made possible for athletes and spectators to attend the Olympics, this should not be misinterpreted as a philosophy of understanding and brotherhood, as the modern Olympic movement would like us think.

As Donald Kyle, author of the monograph "Sport and Spectacle in the Ancient World", points out: the modern Games have become more and more removed from the ancient.