Shot Put Champion Applauds Decision To Delay Games, Will Forge Ahead And Make Best Use Of Extra Time

By Todd Grasley for DyeStat

Michelle Carter is a fixture on the U.S. Olympic team and wants to compete in her fourth Games when they come around again in Tokyo in 2021.

Carter, who turns 35 in October, is the reigning Olympic women's shot put champion and the American record holder. 

After learning this week that it will be another year of waiting for the Olympics, due to the global Coronavirus pandemic, Carter said she plans to tweak her training and go back into a conditioning and training phase.

“I won’t do as much work with the 4K shot,” she said. “I will work with heavy shots and focus on my technique.”

Carter placed ninth at the World Championships in October in Doha, Qatar. 

When the NBA shut down in the aftermath of Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert's positive test for Coronavirus, Carter felt that it was just a matter of time until more sports would follow suit. She went into a mindset to be ready for whatever obstacles came her way and knew that the importance of her health and safety – as well as those around her – came first.

“I didn’t want to decide between a chance to defend my Olympic title or be concerned about my health,” she explained. “Then I started thinking about my family and (how) they can’t come with me to Tokyo, even my father as my coach, I wouldn’t want him there and risk him getting sick. I had faith that USATF (and) USOPC would move on our best interest.”

Now Carter, who placed 12th at her first Olympics in 2008 in Beijing and fourth in London in 2012, will wait with the rest of her track and field peers, and the world, to see how the pandemic plays out.

When will it be contained? When will life return to normal? The answer to these questions remains unknown.

“My perspective is a little different because I’ve been in the game for a while,” Carter said. "Now, I get some extra recovery time. It's getting a break without being hurt. We train so hard and there are times you have little tweaks here and there, but we push through them to be ready. But now the pressure is off.”