EUGENE, Ore. – Payton Otterdahl of Rosemount and North Dakota State earned a berth in the Tokyo Olympics by throwing 71 feet, 11 inches in the men's shot put Friday night at the U.S. Olympic Trials.
"This is the best day of my life, It feels fantastic," Otterdahl said. "I couldn't ask for anything more than to throw a personal best and make the Olympic team."
But his throw, which he said he sensed after "a perfect fling off the fingers" in gaining the third berth on the U.S. team, went under the radar after defending Olympic champion Ryan Crouser broke a 31-year-old world record with a heave of 76-8¼. Reigning world champion Joe Kovacs was second.
"Those guys are my heroes," Otterdahl said.
Crouser, 28, broke the record set by Randy Barnes, whose mark of 75-10¼, set on May 20, 1990, was one of the oldest in the record books.
When Crouser's fourth try plunked into the dirt, well beyond where any other mark had been made, the quarter-filled stadium sent out a collective gasp. About a half-minute passed while officials checked the distance. When it came up on the board, he was mobbed by his competitors.
Going the distance
Joe Klecker (Hopkins) made the Olympic team in the men's 10,000. He was ranked seventh in the event but finished third at 27:53.90, less than a third of a second behind first-place finisher Woody Kincaid's time of 27:53.62.
"I never won an NCAA title. Making the Olympic team today makes up for that," said Klecker, who finished his college career at Colorado in 2020.
As for other local athletes competing Friday:
• Former Gophers middle-distance standout Heather Kampf advanced to the semifinals of the 1,500 meters, clocking 4:13.76 in a heat that included the four fastest qualifiers in the first round.
• Shane Streich, a former Gophers runner who transferred to Lipscomb, took third in his heat (1:48.89) and made it to the men's 800-meter semifinals, but Roshon Roomes of Woodbury clocked 1:50.55 in his heat and was eliminated.
• Gwen Jorgensen, the 2016 Olympic triathlon champion from St. Paul, was 11th-fastest (15:34.84) among the qualifiers for the final in the 5,000.
• Sean Donnelly, a former Gophers athlete, fouled on all three of his attempts in the hammer throw.
Houlihan loses appeal
Shelby Houlihan's quest to overturn her doping suspension in time to run at this year's Olympic trials ended when her request for an emergency injunction from Switzerland's highest court was turned down Friday because the court didn't have the original decision to reference in order to make its own judgment.
The Switzerland-based Court of Arbitration for Sport announced earlier this week it had banned Houlihan for four years after international testers found traces of the performance enhancer nandrolone in her system.
Houlihan, who finished fourth at world championships last year in the 1,500 and holds the American record at both 1,500 and 5,000 meters, says the positive test came because she ate a pork burrito hours before the test. There are many examples in recent years of tainted meat causing positives.
Houlihan had been entered in Friday's preliminaries for both distances.
"Contrary to media reports, I never had any intention of competing if this injunction wasn't granted," she said, giving an update on social media. "If I was going to race, it was going to be the right way. I respect the sport and my competitors too much."
In a social media post, and a video news conference earlier in the week, Houlihan and her attorney gave a detailed explanation of their case — citing hair samples that offered no evidence of long-term buildup of nandrolone and a food log that showed she ate the burrito hours before the test.
