Hammer Time
How does one travel with a hammer?! Our latest obsession is the hammer throw—a sport few will experience firsthand. We chat with British champion Anna Purchase about the unique challenges of mastering this sport, LA2028 and the art of packing a hammer!
By Ellë Bolland
What do you think of when you think of the hammer throw? Google the sport and you’ll get several articles, including stories of death and fatal injuries after misthrown hammers. Youth Olympian, Alegna Osorio: dies after sustaining head injuries in a training accident. Athletics official, Huang Qinhua: breaks his leg and endures serious bleeding after being hit with a misthrown hammer. 19 year old athletics volunteer, Ethan Roser: dies after being struck during a hammer-throw event at Wheaten College, Cincinnati. To the mere mortals among us; a lethal weapon, but there are in fact gifted supermen and women that have the ability to throw it almost the length of a football pitch. It’s both an art and a science as much as it is sport, so what exactly does it take to finesse the skill of throwing the hammer?
Athletes pirouette in the cage to orbit as much momentum and power to throw the hammer as far as possible, using every ounce of strength from their fast twitch muscle fibres. It’s a case of heel-to-toe, rotating like a potter’s wheel at full speed as they move towards the front of the ring, increasing the force and angular velocity of the hammer for the athlete to release it into the sector. Get the timing and the angle just an inch wrong, your hammer isn’t bouncing off the cage with the same buoyance of a football off the goalpost; it’s recoiling back towards you with that kinetic energy you’ve just exerted into it.
In classic TikTok style, you can learn the most niche of hacks and tricks, not necessarily learning how to throw the hammer, but what you can do, is learn how to pack it into a suitcase (here). Hilariously (or not depending on how you view it), the same recoil can happen when you open your suitcase after travelling with the hammer… “It wasn’t until last year that I realised Carabiner clips were helpful in holding the hammer in place inside the travel case! Before learning this, it really was a hold your breath and hope for the best situation…”, British champion, Anna Purchase, tells me after recalling a few funny stories. How on earth did I find myself on hammer-throw-tok you may ask? It was far more innocent than it may seem. I actually came across one of Anna’s TikTok’s that went viral back in July – more on that later. From then, I was desperate to learn more about her and this one-of-a-kind sport, so we got a call locked in.
Anna is speaking to me from her parents house in Nottingham. She’s here for the Summer break before heading back to University of California Berkeley, where she majors in media studies and trains with Paris 2024 Olympic champion, Camryn Rogers. The pair are friends, so much so that Anna actually manages Camryn’s social media. “Living in California, there’s no way I can afford to not work! So I’m trying to develop my corporate skills and professional career to prepare me for life after track. I love social media marketing, video editing, and content creation, so I’m freelancing with that to allow me the flexibility that’s needed with being a professional athlete”, she tells me.
While a financially costly endeavour, Anna’s move to the land of the free has proven a fruitful one. During her time at Berkeley, she has improved her personal best to 73.02m (¾ the distance of a football pitch), sitting second on the UK all-time list behind 2016 Olympic medallist, Sophie Hitchon. I’m intrigued, how do you get into a sport as niche, and arguably, deadly, as the hammer throw?
“When I was young, my mum took my sister and I to do so many different activities, from rock climbing to playing badminton on the weekends. We were just very active children and my mum wanted us to try as many things as we wanted to! Eventually we ended up at the track for the kids club every week and I decided to try a shot put to get me out of all the running we did in the kids club! From there, I was put in the throwing events at our club competitions, and my first coach saw me and said I had potential. The rest is history.”
You may be thinking, how on earth do you identify a child that’s good at spinning with a heavy steel ball?! “It has taken me a LONGGGG time to get to the point I am at – over 11 years in fact! Even when I look back 3-4 years ago, my technique was so different, and pretty terrible. The turning point (ha) was transferring to Berkeley to train with my current coach – only then did I start to fully conceptualise the event and understand how the physics of it all worked. I actually improved from 61m to 73m and a world championship finalist in 3 years – that’s pretty crazy! I love that it is one big puzzle to figure out – you’re never-endingly working towards a finished product, and the satisfaction of those top end throws is unmatched. In terms of the other throwing events, I simply suck at them, haha.”
unmatched
When you think about it, it’s kind of mad. Even as a professional your fate falls onto a single throw. Everything you’ve trained for, may also depend on factors such as the conditions on the day, your hormones, and mindset. You can have all the biomechanics and physical attributes to throw the furthest in the world, but get the technical engineering wrong on the day of competition, you’re not winning gold. How do you maximise your chances of getting it right? “I think the thing that surprises people a lot is just how much it takes to perfect the 5 second throw. We take 100 – 200 throws per week, train upwards of 16 hours, and spend much more than that on recovery, treatment, and fueling ourselves properly! While many people see just the 6 throws in the circle, it takes much more than that to reach and maintain those standards.”
Anna and I actually share one similarity – our line of work, but definitely not our ability to throw… I make the remark, “I guess that’s what sets you apart from other marketeers, like me!”. She gets honest with me, “While I am technically a professional athlete, it is incredibly difficult to make money in the throwing events – unless of course you are THE best. The disparity between 1st and 12th in the world is huge in terms of monetary earnings. I work a full time job in tech to support my dream of making it to the podium of the European Champs, and a finalist for the Olympics! I’m lucky enough to have a job that has a flexible enough schedule that I can train and travel to compete. That said, I am working from 7am in the morning and finishing my lifts at 7pm in the evening with no breaks – it really is a lifestyle.”
I wonder, was this always the goal from that point Anna gave the sport a go? “I never thought I could ever be good enough to reach the professional sport level when I was growing up, while I loved the sport, I never had the confidence. Seeing athletes like the hurdler, Andy Turner, who started at my club, Notts AC, then Sophie Hitchon and other top female throwers on TV gave me hope that I could somehow do it too. Now that I’m at that level, I make a big point of showing the reality of day-to-day life as an athlete, as well as showing both the highs and lows of the sport. I believe this demystifies what being a professional athlete means and makes it seem much more achievable to young athletes. Additionally, I try to talk openly about the struggles of being an athletic woman and to be a role model to younger athletes, to show them that strong is beautiful and we can do awesome things!”.
I’m intrigued. What is Anna’s strategy for platforms such as TikTok? “I make sure to use my platform to advocate for young athletes. For example, this year I was unfortunately barred from competing in the Olympics due to additional bureaucratic standards enforced by UK Athletics. Despite working my hardest, qualifying for the Olympics in 16th place out of the 32 that compete, reaching the standards set by the International Olympic Committee, I was not allowed to compete. Instead of sitting down and accepting this, I spoke out on social media, and in the newspapers in order to bring awareness to a situation that could potentially ruin our sport. If the top athletes in our country are being barred from competing for our country at the highest level, why would younger kids be encouraged, or inspired by seeing us on TV, to pursue the sport. SO many young athletes already quit the sport in their late teens due to the pressures of education, working, and other stressors. If we add additional barriers, this number will continue to decline. I speak out, partially out of my own heartbreak, but also to try and advocate for the sport itself and for future athletes to get this opportunity.”
“What is the ruling exactly?”, I ask. “The UKA policy was essentially put in place to try and maximise the number of medals in these championships. They have also used the justification that any athlete who didn’t reach the final was not worth paying for as they wouldn’t “inspire a nation” – I completely disagree with this assessment. I believe that the more representation Great Britain has in these big events, the more inspirational it is! I remember rooting for every single British Athlete on the TV as a child – regardless of if they won a medal or if they placed last.”
How exactly do you begin to navigate extrinsic limitations such as the UKA ruling? Anna seems determined and still remains incredibly hopeful in the future ahead of her, telling me her plans for the next four years, “I have decided that I can’t do myself the injustice of leaving the sport without reaching the Olympics, given that I qualified this year but had the opportunity taken away from me! I’m already working hard towards LA 2028, with the World Championships in Tokyo next year as the current target! I’ve decided I was not going to let other people’s standards limit my ability and achievement within sport. I have always been a resilient person and it was time to use this once again. While it was soul crushing for a period of time, and while I do still have periods of doubt, this situation did allow me to reassess my commitments and day-to-day life. They say, when one door closes, another opens. I decided that this heartbreak would be a lesson on how to best move forward and I have used it to propel me forwards as such. I am in a much better place than this time last year, and I am excited to see what I can do!”.
To stay up to date on Anna’s journey to her next milestone, LA 2028, follow her on Instagram and TikTok. Anna’s story is a powerful reminder that with passion, perseverance, and a little bit of ingenuity, even the most daunting challenges can be overcome.
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