DANIEL STÅHL’S 231-2 (70.47) gold-medal throw on the next-to-last throw of a rain-drenched and delayed 2-hour-and-55-minute discus competition at the Tokyo World Champs made an indelible impression. Yes, this is not my first time mentioning as much in this space.
If you watched at home from a dry, comfy sofa, did you spill your popcorn after the Swede — who stands 6-7½/353 (2.02/160) — bowed to the stands with his disc between his palms, walked calmly into the slick, glistening ring and rocketed out his winner? He had just turned back WR-holder Mykolas Alekna, who had no sufficient response on the comp’s final throw.
Ståhl, at 33, had just captured his third WC gold with the third-longest in meet history, inferior only to his own 234-5 (71.46) winner at Budapest ’23. and Kristjan Čeh’s gold medal throw in ’22. Ståhl had brought the heave in Hungary on the last throw of the comp.
Yet the conditions this time! The ring offered traction roughly equivalent to an ice skating rink and the rain had only tailed off, temporarily, not 10 minutes before.
Staying on point throughout the contest had required physical and psychological heavy lifting of a very high order.
Ståhl, a true sportsman, stalked out of the ring, game face still set, for he knew the class of the athlete who had one more chance to beat him. It was only when Alekna released his platter and the Swedish veteran recognized it would not be enough that he erupted in exultation and ran into the stands to celebrate.
Take note also that Ståhl’s Tokyo and Budapest gold medal throws, and Čeh’s Oregon22 gold and Budapest silver heaves, are longer than the Olympic Record, 229-8 (70.00), set by Roje Stona at Paris ’24.
Subscriber Mark Zitka was among the flabbergasted and emailed us: “I suspect that the next T&FN edition will talk a bunch about the terrible conditions for the Worlds men’s discus (and they were terrible!), and whether the competition should have been delayed until Monday (probably). But I hope that discussion doesn’t overshadow the greatness of Ståhl’s last throw.
“I don’t have all available information to say this with 100% confidence, but I think it’s the greatest of all time. I don’t think there have been many 70m throws in Worlds or the Olympics… or in stadiums & Ståhl threw 70+ in those conditions!?… on the last throw!? He was so calm. He didn’t even walk on the “towel lane” to dry off his shoes. Plus… His no-reaction right after his toss was priceless.
“I’m hoping that your team can put in perspective what he did better than I can.”
With some expert input I’ll try. For my money, the question properly focuses on global championships competition — highest stakes, stadium conditions, no wind tunnels.
Briton Richard Hymans, has followed the sport closely and compiled statistics for decades. He is a long-serving member of our World Rankings panel and thinks Zitka’s question is worth asking even if no definitive answer exists.
Writes Hymans, “If you look at discus all-time performance lists you have to go down to the 21st-best ever before you find a throw made in an enclosed stadium: Alekna’s 235-3 (71.70) when winning at the London Diamond League this past July [also in a wet ring, though with neither stakes nor conditions nearly as extreme].
In a major championship the massive Ståhl’s 70.47 (#102 on the performances list!) is definitely the second-furthest ever.
“Sooner or later Alekna will get it right in a major championship and I can envisage him hitting 73m [239-6], but for the moment Ståhl is the best at hitting big distances in the final round [though Al Oerter is still the greatest].
I asked Dan McQuaid, who runs the excellent mcthrows.com site and writes about the long throws for T&FN. McQuaid also co-authored with elite throws coach Vésteinn Hafsteinsson the book Gold — The Olympic Journey of Daniel Ståhl & Vésteinn Hafsteinsson.
McQuaid, who is more than capable of analyzing objectively, writes, “You could make an argument that Daniel’s throw was the greatest ever. It came on the big stage. It won him sixth-round gold under conditions so brutal that [’17 world champion] Andrius Gudžius, who knows his days making championship finals are numbered, chose to pass his final two attempts. Just an insanely theatrical moment.
“Other possibilities:
“In 1964, Al Oerter overcame torn rib cartilage to somehow squeeze out an Olympic Record throw to lift himself from 4th to 1st in round 5. Having broken a couple of ribs last winter, I can’t imagine combing your hair, let alone launching a discus in that kind of pain. Interesting that this one also took place in Tokyo.
“Robert Harting’s sixth-round scorcher [on home soil at the World Champs] in Berlin in 2009. The conditions were ideal, but another amazingly theatrical moment — the home crowd, the PB, the celebration.
“Daniel’s Budapest bomb.
“It would be hard to reach a consensus on this among the throwing community. Daniel is beloved, and what he did in Tokyo was crazy, but Al Oerter is a deity.
“A funny side note. I was watching the shot comp in Zürich in August with Daniel’s coach, Staffan Jönsson, and his manager, Hans Üürike. The forecast for the next night, when all the in-stadium events would be held, was wretched.
“When I brought this up, they looked at each other and smiled. ‘If it rains, Daniel will win.’ It did not, and he finished 5th.”
Finally, I polled Mo Saatara, Alekna’s coach during his time at Cal, including for the Lithuanian’s World Record casts last spring. With Alekna now at Oregon and Saatara coaching at Texas, contact between the two is currently prohibited yet Saatara was in Tokyo coaching hammer gold medalist Camryn Rogers and was on hand for the men’s DT.
He writes, “I watched the final very closely and it was very interesting in good and bad ways.
“In terms of performances in stadiums or outside stadiums, wind and other factors, it’s hard to say because that’s a much more subjective issue. Meets set up for records are run much differently than a global championship for the throwing and other field events. If we look at the effects of wind on absolute records, every World Record in the last 55 to 60 years has been accomplished in excellent conditions. One just needs to watch the film/videos of these performances.
“How much wind help is also subjective. Is it 1m or 5m? Direction force and atmospheric factors also come into play. Each thrower is affected differently and there is no objective way to assess this.
“Another factor is throwing in stadiums. All stadiums are constructed differently. Some have tunnels and concourses that are open (like Paris) some are completely enclosed like Tokyo. For example, in London at the 2012 Games the medalists were separated by only a few inches, was this due to the construction and aerodynamics of the stadium or just luck? There is no hard and fast rule about this issue.
“In terms of competitiveness and performance, that is another story. There have been a few throws that have stood the test of time. For example Al Oerter’s Olympic Record in Tokyo 1964 when he was severely injured, Mac Wilkins in Montréal in ’76, Luis Delís’s throw in Moscow in 1980, although there were accusations of officiating interference, Rolf Danneberg’s throw in LA 1984 [a completely unexpected upset over Americans Wilkins and John Powell], etc.
“For me Ståhl’s performance goes down as one of the greatest competitive performances ever. Mykolas’s throw in the London Diamond League meet is up there along with a few other throws over the years.
“One thing that I am proud of, in a way, is that in the last four global championships whomever has ended up beating Mykolas has had to do it with a Herculean effort. ‘22 Čeh [with a 233-4/71.13 almost-PR], ‘23 Ståhl, ‘24 Stona, and now ‘25 Ståhl again.
“Whenever you have adverse weather conditions, any decision that’s made by organizers or officials becomes controversial. Should they have stopped or continued. How would one deal with a wet circle, etc.?
“One thing that’s for sure is that at the moment Ståhl is one of the greatest championships competitors ever. His heroics in Budapest and Tokyo are incredible. The long break between the start of the competition and conclusion definitely affected the competitors. The circle and navigating the environment became a big factor in performance.
“I’ve been honored to attend two global championships at the Tokyo National Stadium: 2021 for the Games [Ståhl the men’s discus champion] and this year for Worlds. The circles are WA ‘spec’ and are exceptional when dry, but when they are wet they are quite slippery. I remember watching the women’s discus competition in 2021 when there was rain and we saw a similar situation once it started raining. There were a lot of slips and falls. Is it possible that they could have etched the concrete to create more traction knowing the World Championships would be held there during the monsoon season?
“That’s a discussion for the organizers and WA. Maybe the specs need to be adjusted. These are questions for people higher on the ‘food chain’ than a coach.”
Expert panel consensus: Oerter’s still the man yet in Tokyo Ståhl — already a proven big-meet star — spun out a spectacular throw that should not be underestimated. Alekna? He’s just getting started. ◻︎
