Walsh and Crouser: Beach Boys versus rock

With 22m74 Crouser is the man behind the world’s leading performance in 2019. Walsh, the defending Diamond League champion, managed to get as far as 22m44 this year, which also happens to be the meet record in Brussels set by Darrell Hill.

“That meet record has to go,” Walsh and Crouser agree. They also think street events are the future of athletics. “It gives us a lot of energy to have the crowd up close and fully focused on our competition”, Crouser said. "This is the future and it helps our sport move forward.”

Walsh added: “It will be a great show tomorrow. It’s also great that we can ask the DJ to play our favourite song before our throws. I’m going to pick something from the Beach Boys. “I prefer something heavier,” his American colleague said. “I’ll ask for a heavy rock song!”

The shot put discipline has known a strong 2019 season with seven out of eight Diamond League finalists reaching 22 metres. “You can throw a meet record and still not be sure about winning,” Walsh said. “It will be close until the final throw."

Walsh and Crouser are even dreaming of the world record, which was set at 23m12 in 1990 by Randy Barnes. Both athletes think the record is in danger. “Our current generation is very strong and the past couple of years we’ve made a lot of progress technically. Sooner or later the world record is going down and that would really good for our sport."