Brittany Crew of Mississauga, Ontario set the Canadian record in the women’s shot put in winning the gold medal at the 2019 Berlin World Challenge on Sunday. Crew’s new shot put record is 19.28 metres. Crew had the previous record of 19.07 metres, which she accomplished at the 2019 Pan American Games in Lima on August 9.
In Berlin, Christina Schwanitz of Germany won the silver medal in women’s shot put with a throw of 18.62 metres. Jessica Ramsey of the United States won the bronze medal with a throw of 18.55 metres. Crew reached the podium by 1.26 metres over Danniel Thomas-Dodd of Jamaica, who finished in fourth place with a throw of 18.02 metres.
Interestingly, it was Thomas-Dodd who beat Crew to win the gold medal at the Pan American Games last month. Thomas-Dodd had a throw of 19.55 metres, which was a Pan American Games record. The world record in women’s shot put belongs to Natalya Lisovskaya of the Soviet Union, who had a throw of 22.63 metres at the Moscow Znamenskiy Memorial event on June 7, 1987.
The gold medal for Crew was one of two medals won by Canadians at the Berlin World Challenge. The other went to Canadian Olympic silver medalist Andre De Grasse of Scarborough, Ontario, who won the gold medal in the men’s 100 metres with a time of 9.97 seconds. De Grasse won the silver medal in the men’s 200 metres and bronze medals in the men’s 100 metres and men’s 4×100 metre relay at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.The medals for Crew and De Grasse will give them confidence as they prepare for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.
