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International attention is being drawn to a often overlooked Olympic event thanks to the unique effect its had on one of it’s star athletes.
US Olympian Ryan Crouser – who just won his third consecutive gold medal in shot put at the Paris games – stunned fans when they saw the difference between his right and left hands.
The 31-year-old displayed his hands side by side in fists in a recent interview- showing clearly that his right fist was considerably larger than the left.
This is a side effect of using his right hand to throw the sixteen pound ball almost forty miles an hour for eighteen years.
Mr Crouser told interviewers that the right hand had taken ‘a beating’ over the years, making it bigger, stronger and less flexible than his left
Mr Crouser is a formidable force in the world of shot put, having one gold in all three of the Olympic games he’s participated in
This extreme, repetitive movement strengthens the muscles in his hand, fingers, forearms and wrists.
But it also causes swelling and reduces his flexibility – all of which work in tandem to make the right hand to become thicker than the left.
Shot put is a track and field sport that requires its athletes to throw a dense metallic ball as far as possible from their starting point using only one hand.
They cannot let the ball drop below their shoulder, so they propel it from their neck using a pushing motion.
The balls, which are made of sand, iron steel or brass, weigh 16 pounds for men and 8.8 pounds for women.
Since the movement you make in this event is so specialized, most shot putters, like Mr Crouser, pick one arm to throw and train that arm alone.
This repeated throwing using only one arm can create the asymmetrical look observed in Mr Crouser by creating bigger muscles and swelling in the forearm.
‘My hand is obviously swollen but a lot of that is just from throwing for years and years. I’ve been throwing for 18 years now. So my right hand is always bigger than my left,’ the Olympian said in a video on his YouTube channel.’
He displayed this difference to the world on an interview with TODAY after winning gold.
In it, he extended both hands and showed how little flexibility their was in the right – since his muscles were so built up they restricted his range of movement. Even when he pushes hard on his fingertips, his hand doesn’t move past a 90 degree angle.
The other side effects of the sport are a bit more obvious – according to 2023 research from University of Tsukuba in Japan, shot put athletes develop stronger chest, abdominal and arm muscles than the average person.
In this latest competition Mr Crouser won gold by launching the ball over 75 feet (22.9 meters) from where he stood in the arena.
The Oregonian currently holds the world record for the longest shot put – launching it 77 feet (23.56 meters) from his starting point.
He competed in both Rio De Janeiro and Tokyo Olympic games and said he hopes to take part in the Los Angeles games in 2028.
