How Valarie Sion used the Iron Wood Classic as a ‘springboard’ toward Olympic gold

In a casual review, the two Olympic gold medals can be the starting and stopping points on Valarie Sion’s athletic resume.

Ours is a results-driven culture. Why go beyond Olympic gold?

But allow her to reveal a more nuanced key that unlocked the door to what’s been the most dominant stretch of American throwing this decade – and, yes, that even includes that Crouser fellow and his cannonball.

It was during the heart of the pandemic in 2020 and, like everything else, track and field had been all but shut down – even the Olympics pushed back a year. When the calendar hit August, the folks at Rathdrum’s Iron Wood Throwers Center decided it was OK to carefully stage a highly abridged version of their annual classic, bringing in barely a handful of the country’s best throwers and inviting no spectators. Sion – she was Valarie Allman then – had risen to No. 1 in the U.S. women’s discus rankings the year before, but wasn’t yet entirely sure of her footing. Not having a season wasn’t going to help the outlook.

And then she stepped into the Iron Wood ring and sailed her first throw southward into the sky and saw it land 230 feet, 2 inches away – breaking the American record by more than three feet.

“It was a huge springboard,” said Sion, fighting through a bout of laryngitis before this weekend’s edition of the Iron Wood Classic, “in terms of believing in myself, heading into the Olympics knowing that I was capable of throwing a mark that was competitive on the world stage.

“It was a moment when I saw I could be a player – I could be a big fish in a big pond. I was figuring out the recipe that was going to lead to having a career in discus throwing. That’s something rare. There are a lot of competitors, but not many who’ve been able to have a career or leave a legacy. That’s become what my goal is: to do something in the sport that really leaves a mark.”

Each meet can be a brick in that wall – including Saturday’s Iron Wood gathering at the grounds on Highway 53 at Ramsey Road. Sion will be the cleanup hitter in the 4:30 p.m. discus competition, but there are 10 other Olympians entered in the program that begins at 11 a.m.

That record she set at Iron Wood in 2020 no longer exists – she hiked it to 241-2 last year. Naturally, she has her sights set on taking it farther and, indeed, sees the world record – 252-0 – as attainable. This despite the fact that Gabriele Reinsch, who posted that mark, and the five other women ahead of Sion on the all-time list competed in the 1980s, in an era of state-sponsored doping programs and prior to random testing.

Only one thrower in the last 37 years has topped 240 feet: Valarie Sion.

So she keeps reaching – even when it costs her.

Two months ago, Sion headed north from her Austin, Texas, base for the Oklahoma Throws Series in Ramona – a discus-friendly venue where she’d produced her 240-footer a year ago. Part of her baggage: a streak of 30 consecutive meet victories dating back to 2023.

“Ramona is one of those places that makes you think anything is possible,” she said.

Including the seemingly impossible. In the first of two competitions, she wobbled her first throw out 185 feet, then managed 213-10 and fouled four other attempts to finish a stunning sixth.

“I just had the wrong approach,” Sion said. “I had it in mind that I could break the world record and swung for the fences. I had no timing, no technique. It was a great reminder about what the right approach is.”

Which she discovered two days later in Ramona 2.0, blasting out a 2026 best of 239-10.

“It was a cool kind of redemption moment,” she acknowledged. “I guess I didn’t realize how much the streak was weighing on me. I wanted to go back to Austin after that first day.”

That she didn’t can be credited to her coach – who also, for three months now, is her husband, Zeb Sion “who knew we were on the right path for a big throw,” she said. He has been architect and analyst in his new bride’s rise since her college days at Stanford, and it’s left Sion No. 1 in the world now for five years running.

But there have been valleys, too.

There were upsets that kept her off the top of the podium at World Championships in 2022 and 2023. And even after her gold medal at the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo, “that’s when I probably struggled the most,” she said.

“I’d felt like the underdog for so long and I loved chasing other people. This was the first time I’d won anything major, really, and suddenly I felt like I had to win everything. No one said that – it was self-imposed. But I wasn’t having a lot of fun.”

Tokyo was a stress incubator anyway, what with constant COVID tests threatening everyone’s participation. Three years later in Paris – this time with her family in attendance – Sion truly regained her groove.

“As great as it was to win in Tokyo, (Paris) was really the moment I had dreamed of,” she said. “I felt so much gratitude and pride in that moment.

“I’m grateful so many people saw more potential than I ever saw. My biggest dreams were to win an NCAA championship and just make an Olympic team. The right people saw a lot more there – and that it was critical to dream bigger.”

Since not every meet can be an Olympics, Sion settles for the joy of merely competing – Iron Wood will be her fifth meet in as many weeks, taking her from China to Morocco to Sweden to Los Angeles before the quiet of North Idaho.

“I love a full stadium and when there’s lots at stake,” Sion said. “But the beautiful thing about Iron Wood is that it brings the sport back to its roots. It’s a simple circle and cage, out in the mountains, at a place that celebrates throwing. I draw energy from that, and it’s extra special to come back and compete this week where I had something special and meaningful happen.”