Sportsworld

Valarie Allman is reigning Olympic champion for the women’s discus and has also won bronze and silver at the last two editions of the World Championships.She tells The Warm Up Track how she and her coach figured out ‘the master of all puzzles’ to win Olympic gold in Tokyo. Valarie explains how, starting out, they sought to break the mould of how previous US throwers had prepared for global championships, and that strategy was to face her main rivals as often as possible on the circuit. But, having succeeded in that, the pandemic then took away that opportunity to compete.Valarie says that actually helped her fall back in love with the sport – all of which set up her Olympic gold medal winning season in 2021. She tells us how it felt silly telling herself she was going to win Olympic gold – but how, after a while, those affirmations began to feel authentic.Young Valarie was a dancer, so what was it like to be around the TV show ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ at weekends, and then being back in Middle School dur