New Samoan National Discus Record! – Alexander Rose Blog Update

I had a very interesting meet this past weekend! I competed at Augustana University Meet of Champions located in Rock Island Illinois. The discus circle faces north, and is backed by a steep slope of rock, making it nearly impossible to throw in a tail wind. A few hundred meters from the discus sector is the Mississippi river, which seems to open up the area for huge gusts of wind, and almost always pushes in a right sector or cross wind. Needless to say, this meet is heaven for a discus thrower.

The only issue is that there is a chain link fence at the end of the sector which reaches just under 63m at its shortest portion (the very middle of the sector). However, if you throw closer to the right or left sector, you won’t have an issue at all. It reaches out closer to 70m.

My first attempt hit the fence on the fly, just a foot or so off of the ground, which they marked to 62.87 for a PR. After that, I shifted my starting position in the circle in order to aim left sector, which messed with my timing a bit since I was over thinking it. I threw a 61.xx, a 62.xx, and a couple fouls. On my final attempt I shifted back to the middle and ended up hitting the fence again- this time a few meters right of my first throw, and also a few feet high on the fence. They marked it at 63.06 for the new Samoan National Record, which is fantastic but bittersweet as I knew I had more distance on it. Next week is Drake Relays, and hopefully I can catch a gust!

63.06m(206’10”)!!! New PR and Samoan National Record. Would have went further but someone put a fence in the way! The disc hit mid-air a couple feet up. But I’ll take it!! Stay tuned. More to come 🙂 #earthfedmuscle #polanik #discus #trackandfield #tracknation #roadtorio #letitfly #throwersunite #thethrowerfam #samoa #letitfly #nike #adidas

A video posted by Alexander Rose (@ithr0wthings) on Apr 23, 2016 at 4:15pm PDT