Nelson talks the torque
Mark Butler

14 September 2000 - It is 92 years since Denis Horgan won Britain's only Olympic medal in the shot put, a silver. It seems likely that this situation will be unchanged in Sydney, but there is every chance that a British-trained athlete from the United States could make it to the podium. Adam Nelson is the athlete in question. His coach is none other than the British Olympic Team Captain, Bob Weir.

For many people, the 25 year-old Nelson would be their pick for the gold. At the US Olympic Trials, he won with the world's longest put in four years, 22.12. This was also a Birchfield Harriers record. Through his connection with Weir, Nelson joined the club in 1998 and won the British Cup meeting that year. He has therefore removed the name of Geoff Capes from the club record lists.

Nelson - who at 1.83 and 99kg is small by shot put standards - is modest about his Olympic aspirations.

"Things have been going very well for me," he said. "With guys like C J [Hunter] and Andy [Bloom] on the US team, plus guys like Buder and Belonog who have been around forever throwing really far, they're going to be used to throwing at the Olympics. I've never thrown in the Olympics before. There's a lot of unknown factors and I am just fortunate to be in the mix."

Nelson was the 1994 World Junior Champion. He then went to University (Dartmouth College), where he did both American football and athletics, though "most of my track season was spent trying to get healthy from the football." In 1998, on the suggestion of his college coach, he moved to California to train with Weir at Stanford. The football-induced injuries cleared up. "I'm finally healthy," he revealed, "which is one of the reasons why I'm performing so well."

Bob Weir, whom Nelson always refers to as "Robert", has summed up Adam's biggest strength in one word, torque.

"I would say the same thing," agreed Nelson. "Essentially it is the separation between the hips and the shoulders," he explained. "Your hips go in one direction and your shoulders go in the other. It's about how long a push you can get on the ball by separating the hips from the shoulders. I do that very well. That's always been something peculiar about my technique. I started in high school and I slid into it by accident. I thought I was doing the same thing as guys like Brian Oldfield, but I wasn't. If you watch when I come through the middle of the circle you'll see my feet continue to go towards the front, while my shoulders actually wrap up and go in the opposite direction. I've been told it looks kind of 'herky-jerky,' but my body's moving in two different directions at the same time. When I release, there's a lot of reflex action there."

This is the technique behind the season of the world's number one shot putter so far in 2000. Besides his US Trials win, he has scored six major victories in Europe. But none of those wins have been quite as impressive as his triumph in the Sacramento Trials, in what was regarded as the world's best shot put contest in years.

"It was a great atmosphere," said Nelson. "Sacramento and USA Track & Field did a great job in promoting the event. I was fortunate on that day to be feeling pretty good. Guys like C J and Andy and John Godina, those guys are the best in the world and have been for a couple of years and I'm Johnny-come-lately to them. Whenever you compete against good opposition, when you have a crowd that's enthusiastic and everything is on the line, big things happen. I was lucky enough to be pushed by those guys to the next level."

Coming into the final round, Hunter (21.81) led from Nelson (21.32), Godina (21.06) and Bloom (20.01). Bloom then put a massive 21.61 to move into second place.

"When Andy threw [that] on his last throw, it just ignited everyone. John Godina was after him and I had been bumped back to third place with Godina fourth. I know John real well, and I was fully expecting him to bust out with a real large throw. I was preparing myself mentally, saying 'You're okay. You have to throw real far right now if you want to make this team.'" Godina, to his disgust, fouled his final throw.

"I was secure in third place," recalled Nelson, "but when the adrenaline gets pumping and you start to focus your mind, it's hard to turn it off. You want to go ahead and I ended up with a pretty good result."

Quite an under-statement. His 22.12 was the world's longest since 1996 and elevated Nelson into the world's all-time top 10 ahead of such legends as George Woods, Aleksandr Baryshnikov and Godina himself. Another of the overtakees was the man who was a solid choice for Olympic gold in the betting prior to Sacramento, C J Hunter.

"C J is a great guy," said Nelson. "He's a great competitor and he's straightforward. He's awesome. I like him a lot and I've learned a lot from him over the past couple of years. He's still the favourite. I'm just a newcomer. I still have to prove myself. C J has been training for this Olympics for four years. He knows exactly how far he's going to throw, and I know he's going to be very tough for anyone to beat." (Editor’s note: CJ Hunter has since pulled out of the Olympics with a knee injury and will be replaced by John Godina, fourth place finisher at the Trials).

Nelson - who lives in Menlo Park, California - has one brother and one sister. His brother [Grant] was a very good rugby player at college, for the University of Colorado, while his younger sister, Sarah-Kay, is a good soccer player. "She's the one with all the athletic ability," he says.

Up to the time of the Olympic Trials, Nelson had been working for an Internet software company in the department of business development. Now his main non-athletics pursuit is "learning how to play the guitar, and I stress learning. I'm not very good but I'm trying to get there. I showed Robert's daughter a couple of chords the other day but it started driving Robert nuts, I think."

One gets the impression that Nelson's attempts at discus throwing also have the same effect on his coach who is, of course, an expert at that particular event.

Nelson confirms: "My discus is scary, and I mean that in a bad way .. you'd better have a good cage."