Canada’s Camryn Rogers Wins Gold in Hammer Throw, While Men’s Basketball Team Falls in Quarter-final

Camryn Rogers of Team Canada competes during the women's hammer throw final on Day 11 of the Paris Olympic Games at Stade de France in Paris, on Aug. 6, 2024. (Patrick Smith/Getty Images)

Canada’s Camryn Rogers took first place in the women’s hammer throw event at the Paris 2024 Olympics, becoming the country’s first-ever Olympic medallist in the event.

On her fourth attempt on Aug. 6, the Richmond, B.C., native tossed 76.97 metres, her farthest throw. In the qualifying round, she threw 74.69 meters, the second-farthest distance in that round.

The United States placed second in the women’s hammer throw event, with Nneka Echikunwoke throwing 75.48 meters, and China placed third after Jie Zhao’s 74.27-meter throw.

Rogers’s gold medal is the country’s third ever in a women’s athletics event at the Olympics. The last time a Canadian woman won gold in athletics at the Olympics was in 1928 in Amsterdam. During those games, Ethel Catherwood won the high jump and the women’s 4 x 100m relay.

Rogers earned the title of world champion at the 2023 World Athletics Championship. A year earlier she won a silver medal at the 2022 World Athletics Championship. That same year, she broke the Canadian record with a throw of 77.67 meters, winning her third National Collegiate Athletic Association title in Oregon.

She made her Olympic debut at Tokyo in 2020, when she became the first Canadian woman to advance to the finals of the women’s hammer throw at the Olympics. Rogers was also the youngest competitor and finished fifth overall.

Rogers has been competing in hammer throwing since 2012, when she was 13 years old. To each competition she brings along a silver pendant that was given to her by her high school coach.

Her win comes just days after Canada’s Ethan Katzberg, the youngest-ever world champion in 2023, took top place in the men’s hammer throw event on Aug. 4. He won with his first throw, 84.12 meters.

Silver went to Hungary after Bence Halasz tossed 79.97 meters, and bronze to Ukraine after Mykhaylo Kokham threw 79.39 meters.

Poland is the only other country to ever win both men’s and women’s hammer throw gold medals at the same Olympic games.

Canada Falls in Men’s Basketball

The Canadian men’s basketball team wasn’t able to fight off France, which won the quarter-final game on Aug. 6.

Canada was able to get within six points of France. However, France pulled away for an 82–73 win and will now face off against Germany, a team it lost to in the group stage of the competition.

Reuters contributed to this article.