Shot putters throw weight behind mates
When Brittany Crew routinely out threw Sarah Mitton by a metre or more, the Canadian shot- putters were both content as training partners, teammates, competitors, roommates, friends and travelling companions.
But when Mitton closed the gap and started trading wins with Crew more often, they were too close for anyone’s comfort. Throwing sessions at practice became intense competition, and that simply wasn’t healthy or productive. They needed more space between them than there was on the results sheet.
So, as of about a month ago, Crew, 26, and Mitton, 24, were no longer roommates. And despite working with the same coach, Richard Parkinson, at the same facility in Toronto, they usually throw at different times of the day.
“To have Sarah there was very good, but it was just hard to adjust to the fact that there was someone on my ass, trailing me, because I’d never had to experience that before. I’d never had someone so close,” said Crew, the four- time national champ and Canadian record-holder at 19.28 metres.
“It was just getting to be too much. We’d be with each other all day long. How can you be friends and competitors and training partners and roommates? It was a lot.”
That said, they are still the best of friends and pushed one another to world top 10 performances in February in New Zealand before COVID-19 shut down international travel. Crew threw 18.88 metres and Mitton 18.84 while winning separate meets down under. Both have met the Olympic standard of 18.50 and each would love nothing more than to represent Canada together next summer in Tokyo.
“We’ve both got our separate places to live now and it seems to be really great because we can be friends first,” said Crew. “Now it’s an advantage. It’s awesome. We push each other to be better and no other country has that right now.”
Mitton, who moved to Toronto from the Maritimes two years ago to work with Parkinson and train with Crew, has a similar take on the relationship, which was falling victim to their innate competitiveness.
“As she said, we are very, very close now ( in throwing distance) and we just need that time apart during practice in order for Rich to actually be able to coach us and make technical changes, or else it’s just a full-out throwfest. Even though we tend to say we’re not really competing at practice, Rich can’t seem to work with us one- on- one when both of us are trying to throw as far as we can every throw.
“We were training together, living together, hanging out together and it just got to the point where we did need a little space. Like with everyone, you can only spend so much time with one person. Now it’s good because we hang out when we actually want to, not when we’re both tired from training.”
They certainly tired themselves out this summer, taking advantage of the fact that a few track clubs in Ontario put on a series of minimeets, and they had worldclass competition, each other, at most of them.
“For all the meet directors who put shot put on every weekend, twice a weekend sometimes for us, it was really cool,” said Mitton. “The momentum kept going. We kept training, we kept pushing through and every competition kept getting better.”
Crew beat Mitton in Brockville, St. Catharines and Brampton, Mitton topped Crew a week later in Brampton, then Crew won in Hamilton and St. Catharines, and Mitton finished off the series with a win in Brampton on Sept. 27. In that last meet, Mitton threw 18.63 metres, Crew 18.62.
Canada has never had the luxury of a one- two punch this good in the women’s shot put circle. This year, only five women in the world have thrown farther than the two Canadians did in New Zealand. The Olympics can’t come soon enough for them.
“I hope the Olympics happen, especially for her because I’ve already been,” said Crew, who finished a distant 18th in 2016. “It would be devastating for me, too, because I put a lot of things on my life on hold, but for her, that’s just a ripoff, you know. She’s never been. And she just totally killed it this year.”
Crew, who finished sixth at the world championships in 2017 and eighth in 2019, has put off chiropractic college to revisit the Olympic dream, while Mitton delayed plans to pursue a Master’s degree in marine biology back home in Nova Scotia.