Dylan Armstrong

Dylan Armstrong

Armstrong in 2010
Personal information
Nationality Canadian
Born (1981-01-15) January 15, 1981
Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada
Height 6 ft 4 in (1.93 m)[1]
Weight 306 lb (139 kg; 21.9 st)[1]
Sport
Sport Track and field
Event(s) Shot put, hammer throw
Achievements and titles
Personal best(s) SP – 22.21 m NR, Calgary, 2011[2]

Dylan Armstrong (born January 15, 1981) is a Canadian shot putter. He is a two-time Pan American Games champion, a former Commonwealth Games champion and has also won world championship silver and bronze medals. He was awarded the bronze medal at the 2008 Summer Olympics seven years after the event in 2015, following a doping disqualification by competitor Andrei Mikhnevich. Armstrong holds the Canadian national record and the Pan American Games record for shotput, and is a former holder of the Commonwealth games record. With his world championship medal, Armstrong was the first Canadian to reach the podium in a throwing event in a major global competition.

Career

Prior to focusing on the shot put in 2004, Armstrong competed in the hammer throw.[2] As a junior, he won a gold medal at the 1999 Pan American Junior Games and a silver medal at the 2000 World Junior Championships. He continues to hold the North American high school and junior records in the hammer throw. His personal best is 71.51 meters, achieved in April 2003 in Walnut.

Armstrong achieved a personal best, and Canadian record at that time, of 21.04 meters at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, where he finished fourth, missing out on a medal by a single centimetre. However, on August 20, 2014 the Canadian Olympic Committee announced that Armstrong would be awarded the 2008 Summer Olympic bronze medal by the International Olympic Committee. This followed a retroactive lifetime ban for doping violations dating back to 2005 given to Belarusian shot putter Andrei Mikhnevich, who had won the medal initially.[3][4]

Commonwealth and World Championships success

28 years after former Canadian national champion Bruno Pauletto won gold at the 1982 Commonwealth Games Armstrong succeeded in reiterating that performance at the 2010 edition of the Games, placing first with a Commonwealth record of 21.02 m.[5][6] At the 2010 World Indoor Championship, in Doha, Qatar, Dylan placed fourth with a Canadian indoor record of 21.39 m. He improved his outdoor national record to 21.58 m at the Askina Meeting in Baunatal, Germany, beating Ralf Bartels to the victory.[7] When in 2014 Andrei Mikhnevich was stripped of the event's silver medal for doping violations, Armstrong moved up to the bronze medal position.[3]

His first true world success came at the 2011 World Championships in Athletics when he won the silver at the outdoor event for shotput. He threw a 21.64 before David Storl of Germany beat him with a 21.78 on his last throw.[8] Armstrong next attended the 2011 Pan American Games, there he went on to win gold and broke the Pan American Games record with a 21.30.[9] Armstrong finished off the year by winning the Diamond League title in shotput.[10]

As one of Canada's leading medal favorites and only medal favorite in athletics, Armstrong had set a season's best of 21.50 heading into the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.[10] There he finished 5th, falling short of a medal.[11]

Olympic bronze medal awarded

Prior to the beginning of the 2013 World Athletics Championships, Armstrong was awarded the bronze medal from the 2010 IAAF World Indoor Championships after Andrei Mikhnevich's positive drug test and subsequent forfeiture of his silver medal.[12] At the time the IAAF and IOC had yet to rule on whether Armstrong would as well receive the bronze medal from the 2008 Olympics where he just missed the podium behind Mikhnevich. In an interview regarding the possible return of the medal Armstrong stated that "I worked hard for it, and I want it back...It's my country's medal too, we deserve it."[13]

After the awarding of his indoor medal, Armstrong began competition at the 2013 World Championships. He qualified for the finals where he threw 21.09 m. In the finals he tossed a season's best 21.34 m. Armstrong acknowledge the importance of sport funding as a result of what was Canada's fourth medal at the World Championships, tying a record from the 1995 World Championships. He said that "I just feel amazing. My coach and I worked really hard, I made some really good choices this year. It's another medal for Canada, it shows that when you have the right coaches in place, the right support and the funding behind it that it's going to pay off. You have to invest in sport, results don't come for free."[14] Armstrong received his medal at a ceremony in his hometown of Kamloops on February 15, 2015, around 700 people attended the event.[15]

Personal life

Armstrong lives in Kamloops, British Columbia and trains there at the nearby National Throws Centre with coach Anatoliy Bondarchuk. In September 2015 Armstrong married the Russian shot putter Yevgeniya Kolodko whom he dated since 2012.[16]

Achievements

Year Competition Venue Position Event Notes
Representing  Canada
2000 World Junior Championships Santiago, Chile 18th (q) Discus 49.53 m
2nd Hammer 67.50 m
2001 Jeux de la Francophonie Ottawa, Canada 3rd Shot put 17.57 m
7th Hammer 64.91 m
World Championships Edmonton, Canada 31st (q) Hammer 63.89 m
2007 Pan American Games Rio, Brazil 1st Shot 20.10 m
World Championships Osaka, Japan 8th Shot 20.23 m
2008 World Indoor Championships Valencia, Spain 14th (q) Shot 19.56 m
Olympic Games Beijing, China 3rd Shot 21.04 m
2009 World Championships Berlin, Germany 16th (q) Shot 19.86 m
World Athletics Final Thessaloniki, Greece 7th Shot 19.61 m
2010 World Indoor Championship Doha, Qatar 3rd Shot 21.39 m
Commonwealth Games Delhi, India 1st Shot 21.02 m
2011 World Championship Daegu, South Korea 2nd Shot 21.64 m
Pan American Games Guadalajara, Mexico 1st Shot 21.30 m
2012 World Indoor Championship Istanbul, Turkey 9th (q) Shot 19.84 m
Olympic Games London, United Kingdom 5th Shot 20.93 m
2013 World Championship Moscow, Russia 3rd Shot 21.34 m

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "Dylan Armstrong". London 2012. Archived from the original on May 1, 2013. Retrieved July 24, 2012.
  2. 1 2 "Dylan Armstrong profile". IAAF. Retrieved July 27, 2012.
  3. 1 2 "Dylan Armstrong to get Olympic bronze from Beijing Games". CBC Sports. The Canadian Press. August 20, 2014. Retrieved August 21, 2014.
  4. Canada’s Dylan Armstrong finally gets 2008 Beijing Olympics bronze medal after doping DQ | Toronto Star. Thestar.com (August 20, 2014). Retrieved on 2016-06-02.
  5. "Armstrong (CAN) ends Canada’s 28 year medal drought". Newsletter of the cwg Delhi 2010.org (official website). October 7, 2010. Retrieved February 5, 2011.
  6. "Canadian shot-putter strikes gold at Games: Kamloops man wins first medal in event at Commonwealth Games since 1982". Alberni Valley Times. October 8, 2010. Retrieved February 5, 2011.
  7. Jorg Wenig (June 3, 2010). Friedrich opens season with 1.96m, Armstrong breaks Canadian Shot Put record in Baunatal. IAAF. Retrieved on 2010-06-03.
  8. Jesse Campigotto (September 2, 2011). "Canada's Armstrong takes the silver". CBC Sports. Retrieved July 12, 2012.
  9. "Armstrong wins gold, breaks Pan Ams record". CBC Sports. October 25, 2011.
  10. 1 2 James Campigotto (July 6, 2012). "Dylan Armstrong defeats soft shotput field in Paris". CBC News.
  11. James Mirtle (August 3, 2012) Canada’s Dylan Armstrong falls short of the podium in men’s Olympic shot put. The Globe and Mail
  12. "Canadian Dylan Armstrong gets shot put bronze medal". CBC Sports. August 1, 2013.
  13. "Olympic bronze may await Canada's Dylan Armstrong". CBC Sports. June 13, 2013.
  14. "Canada's Dylan Armstrong wins shot put bronze". CBC Sports. August 16, 2013.
  15. "Dylan Armstrong finally receives his Olympic medal". CBC Sports. February 15, 2015.
  16. Canadian Olympian's wife caught in latest Russian doping scandal: report. CBC Sports (May 31, 2016)
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Dylan Armstrong.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.