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A week ago, Stanford’s Valarie Allman told herself she was capable of winning a gold medal in the discus at the Tokyo Games.
“I said it and I meant it,” Allman said Monday after becoming the third American woman to win an Olympic title in the event.
Allman, 26, shined at Tokyo’s Olympic Stadium on her first attempt to score an easy victory with a best of 226 feet, 3 inches.
The throw was well ahead of silver medalist Kristin Pudenz of Germany at 219-4. Cuba’s Yaime Perez finished third with a throw of 215-6.
Allman became the first American to take a gold medal in the discus since 2008, when Galt’s Stephanie Brown Trafton won.
Allman was seventh at the 2019 World Championships with a best of 202-10. Her best finish at the NCAA championships for Stanford was third.
Allman had jitters heading to Tokyo after winning the event at the U.S. Olympic trials last month.
Her coach of five years, Zeb Sion, asked Allman to repeat back three phrases: I am capable of winning, I deserve to win and I will win.
“At first, I didn’t really think I embodied them,” she said.
Allman began believing in the exercise the more she did it. By the time she landed in Tokyo, her mind was ready for the challenge.
In the past year, Allman took a leave from a master’s program in communications at Stanford to train for the Tokyo Games. She moved to Austin, Texas, where Sion is an assistant coach with the Longhorns track team.
The throw Monday was almost 24 feet better than her performance at the World Championships in 2019.
It came after the competition in Tokyo was interrupted by rain.
“Weather always is one of those finicky things you can never predict,” Allman said. “For me, training for discus is such a tactical thing, it’s all about precision. Rain is one of those things it makes timing hard, it makes rhythm hard. You can’t prepare for that.”
Even if Allman couldn’t prepare for the rain, she overcame the delay to fulfill that mantra Sion taught her.