All six of Crouser's monster throws in Wednesday's competition either tied or broke the Olympic record.
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Reigning Olympic champion Ryan Crouser opened up his title defense in the men's shot put final with an Olympic record of 22.83 meters on his first throw of the evening. He went on to better it two more times and ended the day with a 23.30-meter toss for the second-farthest throw in history and a second Olympic gold.
All of Crouser's six throws matched or broke the previous Olympic record. Five of the six were far enough to beat his compatriot Joe Kovacs's 22.65 mark for silver and New Zealand's Tom Walsh's 22.47-meter toss for bronze.
Crouser's 2021 campaign has been one of the greatest in history. It kicked off when he broke Randy Barnes's 22.66-meter indoor world record, a mark that had stood since 1989, with a 22.82-meter toss.
It was only a matter of time before Barnes's 1990 outdoor world record of 23.12 meters fell. At the U.S. Olympic Trials, Crouser finally toppled it with a 23.37-meter throw to beat the previous record by about 10 inches.
Kovacs has been Crouser's biggest rival for the past six years. Kovacs won the 2015 world championship title and then took silver behind Crouser at the Rio Olympics and 2017 world championships. The 2019 world championships in Doha proved to be the greatest shot put competition in history, with Kovacs winning by just one centimeter at 22.91 to Crouser and Walsh's 22.90.
With his victory on Thursday morning in Tokyo, Crouser becomes the second American man to successfully defend his Olympic gold medal in the shot put since Parry O'Brien went back-to-back in 1952 and 1956.
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