Throwing toward Beijing
On a clear day in Chula Vista in March, you could see Beijing in August. At least Ian Waltz could. Not far off in the horizon, but on a flat screen television wired to a minicam pointed at Waltz himself, sailing discus after discus 200 feet through the sky to a landing in an expanse of stubble already losing its green. As he peered at
his own image again and again, he picked apart the flaws – a dropped arm, a too-slow orbit, a lazy finish.
“Right there,” he said, the signal to video operator Jamila Demby to freeze the frame, “I need to be more active.”
Throw, rewind, critique, retrieve.
Repeat all the way to China and the Olympic Games.
At the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, Calif., the presumption among the 200-some residents – and this has been Waltz’s home for four years – is that they’ll be in Beijing for the Opening Ceremonies. They are in fact some of the best America can summon in track and field, archery, kayaking, softball, cycling and numerous other Olympic sports. Many, of course, must survive qualifications or trials to make the team and this is not taken for granted, but simply viewed as a necessary step.
Waltz, now 31, has taken it once before, in 2004. Now his time is near again – the discus final coming in one week, on the last day of the U.S. Olympic Track and Field trials in Eugene, Ore.
“I’m pretty confident I’ll make the team, but like in any event or sport, you never look past it,” said Waltz, a graduate of Post Falls High School and Washington State University. “You have one day to make the team. They give you a date and that’s what you train to do.”
It is, in fact, the most unforgiving day in sports.
“Think if college was like this,” said Jim Bauman, a sports psychologist based at the training center and formerly on staff at WSU. “A panel can ask you any question about any class you had in the last four years. If you get it right, you graduate. If you don’t, you get the choice to go back and start all over again as a freshman – or quitting.
“That’s really what this is about. And for these guys, it happens that quick. Can you answer the question or not?”
Waltz is one of 14 Cougs or Coug alums at the trials, and one of 23 athletes with area connections. A few, like Waltz and pole vaulter Brad Walker – ranked No. 1 in the world – would seem to be locks to make the team. Most are longshots, taking their one flyer or building toward a better chance in 2012.
That was Waltz four years ago, when he was a minor surprise in making the team to Athens by finishing second.
“That was my first major team and I’d come off some really tough years,” he said. “I don’t know what I was ranked in the U.S. – maybe 10th. So the main goal was just making the team, and after I made it I was pretty much mentally and physically shot. So I didn’t throw that well in Athens.”
He was 22nd in the qualifying round and didn’t reach the final. What he learned, of course, is that he could the next time.
In 2005, he won the first of two straight national titles and finished fifth in the World Championships, boosting his lifetime best to 219 feet, 8 inches. The next year it went up to 226-1, and his world ranking shot up to No. 4. In 2007, he topped the U.S. rankings for a third straight year. And at the moment, his seasonal best of 226-0 from a month ago in breezy Salinas, Calif., is the fourth-best throw in the world.
The security of living and training at the USOC facility, the daily prodding from friend and workout partner Jarred Rome and the steady hand of coach Bud Rasmussen have all contributed to this rise. But no more than Waltz’s own capacity for work and ability to handle change – whether it meant shedding 30 pounds to pick up needed quickness, or recovering from a miscalculation in his training schedule last year.
He’s even courted change – as he did earlier this year when he dropped a surprise marriage proposal on his girlfriend of two years, Olympic pole vault gold medalist Stacy Dragila.
It happened in Dragila’s home in Pocatello, after she’d returned from vaulting at the Millrose Games in New York City. Waltz was to meet her there, but he showed up early – having conspired with friends to shoot a video on Ocean Beach near San Diego, with the proposal etched into the sandstone. Dragila watched the video, unaware that Waltz was in her bedroom, on bended knee amid a blanket of rose petals, holding the engagement ring – and waiting.
“I’ve got to admit, I was shaking like crazy,” Waltz said, laughing. “I got there about noon and she didn’t get home until 8 or so, and that was a lot of time to think about it and worry that everything would be perfect.”
The wedding date will be post-Beijing, probably in November.
“There are some options,” he said. “Maybe Italy, maybe Hawaii – or maybe we’ll jump in the truck and go to Vegas.”
Do love and happiness have a salutary effect on track performance? There’s no hard data.
“But I know it’s hard a lot of times for elite athletes, because their other halves can feel left out because the training is so consuming and your life is devoted to this one goal,” Waltz said. “To be with someone who understands is nice. Plus we can travel together, so it’s a good support system – though I really don’t understand the pole vault. At least, that’s what I’m told – and I don’t.”
The discus he understands – though the fact that he’s as accomplished as he is may be surprising to some who still think he was physically better suited to the shot put.
“He is much shorter than his competitors – it’s almost funny when you see it on TV,” Rasmussen said. “He’s maybe 6-2 and the guys in the (world) top 10 are anywhere from 6-5 to 6-8, which gives them mechanical advantages. Their wingspan is longer, so they can pull the discus from a farther distance. So he has to make up for it in speed and strength.
“But the thing about Ian is, you tell him he can’t do something and he’ll prove you wrong. He thrives on challenge.”
And the challenges – making the team, making the Olympic final and making the medal stand – are all distinct.
“This time, it’s more business,” Waltz said. “I won’t be going to the Opening Ceremonies. I’ll be solely focused on qualifying and the final. The first time was a great experience, it was awesome. But now I’m going there to medal, not just to compete.”