Double Olympic champion sees three-year unbeaten run ended by Darlan Romani at World Indoors, as Sandi Morris and Damian Warner prove too good in pole vault and heptathlon

Ryan Crouser suffered his first defeat in the shot put in three years as Brazil’s Darlan Romani, who claimed the first major medal of his career, took home a surprise World Indoor gold in a championship record of 22.53m in Belgrade on Saturday (March 19).

The last time Crouser, the reigning Olympic shot put champion and world record-holder both indoors and out, lost an event was way back at the 2019 World Championships in Doha.

Such a surprise loss speaks volumes of his recent dominance. The American holds four out of the top five indoor throws in history and was unbeaten in 32 outings heading into Belgrade.

An opening throw of 22.44m, which turned out to be Crouser’s best of the competition, was a championship record. In theory, what followed should have been the formality of finishing first but by the halfway stage Romani replied with that monstrous 22.53m to take the lead and the record.

Only Randy Barnes, Ulf Timmerman and Crouser himself have ever thrown further indoors.

The expectation was that Crouser would find a way to snatch back the lead, but surprisingly it seemed the pressure got to the double Olympic champion after he fouled in his fifth throw and couldn’t match the distance of Romani on his last.

“I came out and started the competition quite well and I was happy with the first attempts,” Crouser said. “The training has not been fantastic and overall I am concerned about the distance. I really wanted to perform better.

“It was an extremely long competition. I must say congratulations to Romani on a massive PB, he did extremely well and competed well so he deserved it.”

Romani is the first Brazilian to win an indoor medal since Mauro Vinícius da Silva claimed gold in the shot put at Sopot in 2014.

Double Olympic bronze medallist and 2017 world champion Tom Walsh claimed bronze with 22.31m, tying his Oceania indoor record from the last World Indoor Championships in Birmingham in 2018.

WORLD INDOOR CHAMPION

A stunning upset occurred in the shot put as Brazil's Darlan Romani ended Ryan Crouser's three-year winning streak with a championship record ?

? Darlan Romani ?? (22.53m)
? Ryan Crouser ?? (22.44m)
? Tomas Walsh ?? (22.31m) #WorldIndoorChamps ?? pic.twitter.com/BjbKtzGLTw

— AW (@AthleticsWeekly) March 19, 2022

Scott Lincoln, who started the year off with an indoor personal best of 20.73m at the BoXX United Manchester World Indoor Tour, only managed 19.65m and finished 16th out of a possible 17 places, in what was a difficult evening for the six-time British indoor champion.

“Not the world debut I was hoping for but, putting things into perspective, I know where I can improve and I’m just going to keep working hard,” Lincoln said. “The outdoor season has always been the aim anyway, I am not suited to the indoor ring as well as the outdoor ring so we’ll go from here and keep building.

“I qualified for this event so I deserved to be here and my performance maybe doesn’t show that today. It’s just going to make me hungrier for the outdoors.

“There’s a big summer coming up. I am planning on doing all three [Worlds, Commonwealths, and Europeans] so I am just going to get back to the UK now, have a week off to recover, have a bit of enjoyment in life and, as I say, just keep building.”

Morris beats Nageotte after Tokyo disappointment

Sandi Morris put the agonising pain of pulling out of the Tokyo Olympics due to a hip injury behind her as she beat fellow American and Olympic champion Katie Nageotte in what was an intriguing clash.

It was clear from the start that both Morris and Nageotte were the standout names on the start list, which wasn’t surprising given the former won Olympic pole vault silver at Rio 2016 while Nageotte won gold in Tokyo last summer.

The results emphasised that fact, with Morris winning gold with 4.80m while Nageotte had to settle for silver with 4.75m. Given they were both way off their respective indoor personal bests of 4.95m and 4.91m you could tell quite quickly that records weren’t going to be broken in the event.

European indoor silver medallist Tina Šutej came incredibly close to winning a silver medal for Slovenia but she lost on countback to Nageotte.

“It’s really amazing,” Morris said. “Being at this level for so many years is so difficult to do. To be able to take that title, it really means so much to me. After a year like last year when I was injured for the Olympics you feel you have to prove yourself again.

“We’re so hard on ourselves and I wanted to go out and prove it to myself that I could still do it at this level. Today was about me fighting off my own internal demons. Doing it back to back was amazing and doing it with my team-mate and now training partner Katie  was really special.

“It gives me goosebumps thinking about it. We’re going to go back and forth for the next few years. It’s going to be so much fun. I was disappointed I didn’t have 4.90m in me today. I went for it but my energy wasn’t there after I knew I’d won.”

Wily Warner too good in heptathlon 

Damian Warner started from where he left off after winning decathlon gold at last year’s Tokyo Olympics by adding the World Indoor heptathlon crown to his collection of medals.

The Canadian produced a stunning all-round performance as he built up 6489 points to go second on the all-time heptathlon list behind Ashton Eaton.

He has now won gold medals at the Olympics, World Indoors and Commonwealths and will now set his sights on becoming decathlon champion at this summer’s World Championships in Eugene.

Warner was impressive over the two days. He started off superbly by winning the 60m and the long jump before finishing fourth in the shot put, ninth in the high jump, first in the 60m hurdles, fifth in the pole vault and third in the what was a decisive 1000m.

Swiss star Simon Ehammer pushed him all way, however, the 22-year-old European U23 long jump champion finishing on a national record-breaking total of 6363 on his way to silver. Australian Ashley Moloney claimed the bronze in an Oceania indoor record of 6344.