Valerie Allman
Since our previous post was on the identification of an unknown discobolus (discus thrower), we shall continue in the event to bring light on one of the least known or honored of American Olympic gold medalists, Valerie Allman, the winner of the women's discus at Tokyo a few weeks ago. I recall seeing a thirty second spot showing one of her throws, and someone saying she had won. That was about it. No mention that she had defeated the two time defending champion Sandra Perkovic. Were the suits at the controls out of their minds?
How many times have US women won the event? Answer. Lillian Copeland in 1932 and Stephanie Brown Trafton in 2008.
Where did this lady come from? Olga Fikotova got more publicity when she left Communist Czechoslovakia to marry American hammer thrower Hal Connelly.
There was brief mention that Allman had a dance background, and if anyone saw her throw that history was evident. Valerie is not a big woman as discus throwers go, but wow does she have form, acceleration, control and strength. If she avoids injury, the rest of the world's good thowers are going to be playing 'catch up' for quite a few years.
Earlier this year she set the American record at 230' 2", an improvement in her best of almost 10 feet. She made this throw in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho and had to be drug tested within 24 hours. The nearest drug tester was in Portland, OR, so it was a race to meet half way at a gas station in Hermiston, OR to drop a sample. This story is related in the article below.
Her sponsor is Oiselle running gear. In looking at their site, they only display running clothing. We think they are going to have to develop a whole new line of clothing to keep up with their client.
You can see her record throw in the article as well as some her weight lifting work. In addition to winning the Colorado high school championship in 2013 and setting the state record at 184 feet, we also found that she ran cross country in high school and later attended Stanford University where she was an All American. She also threw the hammer and the weight at Stanford. She is coached by Zebulon Sion.
Article by Oiselle: https://www.oiselle.com/blogs/oiselle-blog/anatomy-of-an-american-record
Two Comments from Richard Mach:
Comment 1. My wife, Claudia, the artist and trenchant observer, picked it up before either of us knew any details around her background. I think the word she used was ‘balletic’. I saw her in a DL
meet since Tokyo and she seemed almost dwarfed by the Croatian, Perkovic. But then only Crouser at 6’7” isn’t. Field events have always been relegated to 2nd class status. The DL however needs to dump the top three business, then starting all over again from scratch. One recent triple jump for men had in the finals, the reverse order after their ‘qualifying’ jumps. Nada! Ato was all over it. Allman reveals the supreme importance of biomechanical virtuosity in these marvelously technical events. At probably about 6’ and probably around 205#, she is no match for the Croat size-wise, but she does “dance” in the small ring. And there is no ‘hitch’ in the acceleration of the implement. If we were able to map its elevation off the floor during her spin, I wonder if it wouldn’t describe a perfect, uniformly elevating spiral throughout: An elegant set of many unimpeded movements. And, besides, she is from Longmont, CO up the street from Boulder. And a wonk from Stanford as well.
from Bruce Kritzler: Valerie Allman is 6'0" 165 pounds
Comment 2. NBZzzzzzz has a stable of time worn desiderata, each of which tell a story that would fit nicely in a book of fairy tales. They shoe horn their targeted new find into one of the these hackneyed constructions and pass that off as reality. If you are too outside that circumscribed set of ‘ideals’ they simply don’t cover you.
Allman is too large a woman. She is naturally rather than classically attractive. She is not about being sexy. She is well spoken while being a bit diffident if memory serves. She has the sloped shoulders indicating upper body strength. She didn’t live a life of hard knocks. Her disengaged mother didn’t die. She isn't about drama. She doesn’t resort to a doobie to cope with life’s troubles. She doesn’t talk trash, so, apparently she is out of the running. She’s too real, the network’s recasting her wouldn’t work.
The absolute nadir of NBC covering our sport came when just after the Jamaican quadruple gold medalist has come within one twentieth of a second of the heretofore untouchable WR, the simpleton buffoons interview our possible ‘ Flash in a Pan’ instead and in mid-interview the contestants are filing out— and our mighty mite, Shelley Anne, gives a look for the ages that said everything needed to w/out uttering a peep The suits back in NY unfamiliar with the experience let alone the concept of shame, had it pass right by them. Oblivious. Such amoebas should not be in control of our sport. Shaping it into something fitting their misbegotten model of all sport. Richard
George:
I did see Valerie throw once or twice, but maybe that was at the Trials. In any case she just demonstrates that one does not have to be a Press brother to throw something heavy. She approaches it with grace, coordination, and also dance. One person who taught me to throw the discus was an assistant at IU who called it a dance event. He showed us a learning progression which was much closer to dancing than to throwing but I will never forget that progression and have used it numerous times since.
As for coverage, NBC has opted to cover mostly Americans but somehow Valerie fell through the cracks. That's a shame because she would surely have enhanced their programming. US sprinters have captured their imagination, followed closely by Jamaican sprinters. Everything else is just background, especially the field events although I believe they covered most of the running events pretty well. With replay so easy, it would be a snap to cover the top phases of the best field events and make them attractive, but only the men's SP was covered very well along with a little PV.
Bill Schnier
George, this blog brings up something for me. I was really disappointed in the NBC coverage of the track and field events. I recorded everything. And yet there we're a number of events I didn't see. Like the finals of the woman's discus. I don't recall seeing the finals or Valerie Allman
Mike Waters
Interesting comments, all. It had been in the back of my mind to say something about this the past several weeks, and your thoughts seem to corroborate that sentiment.
As for applying dance to sport, is this a revolutionary breakthrough? I recall once a professional dance troupe appearing at a school where I was coaching track and cross country. The dancers must have practiced at least four hours the day of their performance. The intensity was incredible and in my mind I was thinking, that no sports team could ever practice this hard the day of a game and go out and perform well. I also remember many years ago an article somewhere, perhaps Sports Illustrated, where a professional football team had hired a dancer to train their interior linemen.
As for coverage of various sports at the O's, we'd have to see a breakdown of time given to each sport to make a statement. But it does seem that we saw an awful lot of beach volleyball.
George
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