Rogers

SEPTEMBER 2023 UPDATE:

Camryn Rogers continues to rewrite the history books. She won gold at the 2023 World Championships which was the first gold medal at worlds for a Canadian woman in 20 years (Perdita Felicien in 2003). She captured a silver medal at the 2022 World Championships where she was the first Canadian woman to ever win a medal in a field event.

At the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, she finished 5th overall. She was the youngest competitor in the final by almost two years and was the first Canadian woman to ever advance into an Olympic hammer throw final.

From the time she first picked up that weighted ball at the end of a steel wire at the age of 11, Camryn Rogers knew she loved the hammer throw. Three Canadian records later, it is fair to say that the event has been good to her, culminating in her first Olympic team this summer.

Rogers has re-written the U23 hammer throw record book, ending in a historic showing to win her second NCAA Championship. Her first throw travelled 74.97 metres, surpassing her personal best by almost two metres. She was not done there. With the championship in hand, her final throw capped off an incredible meet with a new collegiate record – 75.52 metres.

“It just felt different, like a different kind of throw to any I’ve ever had. I never really cheer, never celebrate during the competition,” she told Sports Illustrated. “I released and I just got happy instantly. I knew it was going to be a big throw and once I saw what the number was, it was everything we’ve worked up to.”

That wasn’t even Rogers’ first triumph in that stadium in 2021. Standing in the circle at the West Coast Classic in April, Rogers bettered her previous personal best by almost a metre and a half, hurling the weight 73.09 metres to win the meet, set a new University of California school record, achieve the fourth-farthest hammer throw in NCAA history, and eclipse the Olympic Qualifying Standard of 71.50 metres.

Her Olympic breakthrough is not a surprise after a decorated international career through the age groups. She holds the Canadian hammer throw records in the U18 3kg, U18 4kg and the U20 4kg categories as well.

In 2016, Rogers won the U20 Canadian Championship in both the shot put and the hammer throw. The next year, she was the U20 Canadian Champion in the hammer throw again, this time setting a Canadian and Championship record. The following year, also saw Rogers earn the Junior Pan American Championship and represent Canada at the 2017 IAAF World Junior Championships. In 2018, she won the U20 World Championship in the hammer throw with a throw of 64.90 metres. The accolades kept coming in 2019, when she won the NCAA Championship with a then personal-best throw of 71.50 metres, the day before her 20th birthday, breaking the Canadian U23 record.

In Rogers’ short career, she has captured countless BC Athletics annual awards, including Outstanding Female Youth Athlete, Outstanding Junior Athlete and Outstanding Performance, and was named Athletics Canada’s U20 Athlete of the Year in 2018. Rogers’ is also a First-Team All American in the NCAA.