PARIS, France – Stanford alumna Valarie Allman ’17 won her second consecutive Olympic gold medal in the discus on Monday, becoming the second two-time track and field gold medalist in school history.
Allman took the lead on her second throw and no one exceeded that distance except herself, winning with an effort of 228-0 (69.50 meters). Allman joined two-time decathlon champ Bob Mathias (1948, 1952) as double gold-medal winners.
Allman won gold at the 2021 Tokyo Games, but despite being the world’s dominant thrower in recent years, she took bronze and silver at the past two World Championships.
She loves to open with a big throw and on Monday in Paris, her first toss sailed out of bounds for a foul. By the time she threw again, four different people had taken the lead with China’s Feng Bin in front at 217-7 (66.33).
With Throw No. 2, Allman unleashed a toss of 225-6 (68.74) to bolt into the lead. Feng and Croatia’s Sandra Elkasevic each had throws of 221-6 (67.51) in the third round, but no one got any closer. Allman put the competition away on her fourth throw, with a distance of 228-0.
Allman, the American record holder at 234-5 (71.46), became the first American woman to win this event twice.
“In discus, there are so few people who get to do it as a profession,” she said. “To do this full time, it’s an honor. It takes a lot of devotion, too, but I think in my journey, it's been finding the right people who believed in me at the right time, who saw far more potential than I saw myself, and letting the story unfold in a way that I only could have dreamed of.”
At Stanford, Allman was a six-time All-American and a two-time Pac-12 discus champion, and was the 2018 Pac-12 Woman of the Year.