Can Echikunwoke make history as first USA athlete to win an Olympic medal in Hammer throw?

This may sound incredible but it is the truth: no woman from the USA has ever won an Olympic medal in the hammer.

That will be the history Nigeria-born USA champion, Annette Echikunwoke will want to rewrite as she is set to make her Olympic Games debut in Paris, France.

Echikunwoke, who switched allegiance to the USA barely two years after pledging her allegiance to Nigeria in December 2020, is still the African record holder in the hammer throw.

The 28 year old was among the 10 Nigerian track and field athletes denied the chance to compete at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games due to the incompetence of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria.

The two-time national (Nigeria and USA) hammer throw champion is one of the athletes World Athletics has projected as contenders for a place at the podium.

This will be her second appearance in a global championship/games for the USA after competing at the World Athletics Championships in 2022, finishing 12th in the final classification.

With Brooke Andersen, the world leader in the event at 79.92m not making the team to Paris, as well as Janee Kassanavoid who medaled at the 2022 and 2023 World Athletics Championships also missing, Echikunwoke will only need to worry among a few others about reigning world champion Camryn Rogers of Canada who is also spearheading her country’s first ever medal at the Olympic stage.

She will also need to worry about her compatriot, DeAnna Price whom she beat to win the USA Olympic Trials last month in Oregon but who has thrown 77.16m this year to place third in the pre-Paris Olympics top list.

The USA champions holds a 74.68m personal season’s best that puts her eighth in the world list this year but knows she will need to throw close to 78m, far above the 75.49m lifetime best she set in 2021 to set the African record, to stand a chance of making history for her country of birth.