TNT Sports
Throw-klahoma: The tiny American town where discus world records fall
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Published 15/04/2025 at 11:12 GMT+1
As track and field enters a new era with Grand Slam Track, field events are having to find a way to make a name for themselves. In a small town in Oklahoma, they have done just that, with the world's best athletes travelling from all over the globe to compete in Throw Town. After setting his first world record here last year at 21 years old, Lithuanian Mykolas Alekna returned to dominate again.
Lithuania's Mykolas Alekna reacts
Image credit: Getty Images
Ramona is a small, unsuspecting town in Oklahoma with a population of just under 700 people.
But unbeknown to most of the world, this town has been dubbed Throw Town and Throw-klahoma.
What happened?
On April 13, records went tumbling in the men’s discus competition in Ramona, with three throws beyond the world record in just one competition.
Each competitor had six throws, but in the first round Mykolas Alekna shattered his own world record of 74.35m, which he set at this competition last year, with a throw of 74.89m.
The Lithuanian 22-year-old then went on to better his distance in the sixth round with a massive throw of 75.56m – improving his own world record by an unheard of 1.21m in just one day.
Australian Matthew Denny followed Alekna’s final round performance with what would have been a world record throw of 74.78m.
This day also marked the first time that five men have thrown over 70m in one competition, with Brit Lawrence Okoye taking fifth spot with a throw of 70.76m.
The former NFL player broke his own British Record of 68.24m, which he set in 2012 before his career in American Football.
Why were so many records broken?
Throws events in athletics are often impacted by the wind, but discus is the most affected by the weather, with javelin a close second.
To capitalise on this, Millican Field in Ramona was built with several circles in different positions for athletes to throw from depending on the direction of the wind.
This means that many of the world’s top discus throwers will travel to Ramona for these competitions to chase those big distances.
However, even with the advantage of several cages, the athletes have to time their throw with the wind perfectly and release it at precisely the right angle to catch the wind correctly.
Isn’t using the wind illegal?
Unlike in track and jumps events, there are currently no wind speed restrictions for a throw to be deemed legal.
In sprints and jumps, a tailwind exceeding +2.0m/s means that an athlete’s performance is deemed to have been wind assisted and therefore an illegal result.
This was introduced to even out performances across the world so that times and distances could be equally compared to one another without wind factoring in.
The performance will be valid for that competition, the illegal tailwind just means that the result cannot be registered for any sort of record.
The reason that this doesn’t exist in throws is because the wind can affect the implement in various ways. It’s not as simple as more wind equals more distance.
A tailwind in discus could actually reduce the distance as it can push the discus downwards, whereas a headwind could help the discus to fly further.
Making best use of the wind has become a crucial skill within discus, one that Alekna seems to have perfected already.
Jasmine Trapnell
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