ARMSTRONG CLAIMS WORLD SHOT PUT BRONZE.
MOSCOW — The Canadian track and field team is on pace for a historic performance at the world championships.
Dylan Armstrong won bronze in men’s shot put Friday to boost Canada’s medal haul to four, tying its best-ever total at the competition.
The thrower from Kamloops, B.C., reached the podium with a season-best toss of 21.34 metres to capture his second straight medal at the event. He won silver in 2011.
“I just feel amazing,” Armstrong said. “My coach and I worked really hard, I made some really good choices this year.”
Armstrong joins Brianne Theisen-Eaton (silver, heptathlon), Damian Warner (bronze, decathlon) and Derek Drouin (bronze, high jump) as Canada’s medallists in Moscow.
Canada’s performance at the world championships has been an improvement over the 2012 London Olympics, where Drouin’s bronze was the track and field team’s only medal.
“It’s another medal for Canada, it shows that when you have the right coaches in place, the right support and the funding behind it that it’s going to pay off,” Armstrong said. “You have to invest in sport, results don’t come for free.”
Canada also won four medals at the 1995 world championships in Sweden, though two of those were gold — one captured by Donovan Bailey in the men’s 100 and the other by the men’s 4x100-metre relay team.
David Storl of Germany retained his shot put title. Storl’s winning throw of 21.73 metres was first flagged for a foul but later reinstated.
Ryan Whiting of the United States took silver with a toss of 21.57.
Armstrong was plagued by an elbow injury last season and finished a disappointing fifth at the London Games.
He was a fourth-place finisher at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, though that may change after Belarusian Andrei Mikhnevich received a lifetime ban for a doping violation. Mikhnevich’s medals at IAAF events have been stripped, but the International Olympic Committee has not yet relieved Mikhnevich of his 2008 bronze.