Mitton

SEPTEMBER 2023 UPDATE:

Sarah Mitton captured a silver medal in the shot put at the 2023 World Championships. At the 2022 World Championships, she was tied for the bronze medal, but was pushed back to finish 4th after losing a tiebreaker throw.

She finished 28th at her first Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2020.

As one of the world’s shortest elite shot putters, you wouldn’t think that FISU World University Games champion Sarah Mitton would cut an intimidating physical presence.

Yet, what the 5-foot, 6-inch (1.69-metre) thrower lacks in pure height, she more than makes up for it in speed, technical ability and heart – a fact exemplified in Auckland, New Zealand, in February 2020 when she defeated two-time Olympic Champion Valerie Adams, a woman who stands a towering 6 feet, 4 inches (1.93 metres). On that occasion, Mitton produced the performance of her career to secure a victory with a personal best of 18.84 metres, a throw that would ultimately qualify her for the Olympic Games.

A native of Brooklyn, N.S., Mitton dabbled in long jump and sprints before picking up her first shot. Within two days, she set a district record in a local competition and her throwing journey officially began.

Mitton won her first National Championship medal in 2011 – a bronze at the Canadian Youth Championships – but narrowly missed qualifying for the 2013 World U18 and 2014 World U20 Championships by a matter of centimetres. She finally made her international debut at the 2015 Pan American Junior Championships, hosted in Edmonton, where she threw a then personal best of 14.57 metres, good enough for fourth on that day.

She continued to make strides, but it was the switch to a new coach, Richard Parkinson, and a new training group in 2017 that accelerated her improvement. In less than a year, Mitton had improved her best mark by more than a metre, placed third at her first senior Canadian Championships, earned a gold medal at the Canada Summer Games and placed 10th at the FISU World University Games in Taiwan. She also changed her throwing technique, moving from the glide to the rotational technique, which suits her natural speed in the circle.

In 2018, her final season at the University of Windsor, Mitton had a U SPORTS season for the record books. She claimed the Ontario University Athletics title in women’s shot put and weight throw, then went on to claim a silver medal at the U SPORTS Championships in weight throw, before capping off her indoor season with a gold in shot put. Mitton was named U SPORTS Female Field Athlete of the Year, set the Canadian U23 shot put record at 18.52 metres and was named Athletics Canada’s Canadian University Athlete of the Year.

To build experience, Mitton embarked on a gruelling 10-month long season in 2019 that began in January and ended with the 2019 World Athletics Championships in October. She competed in nearly 30 competitions and was crowned the FISU World University Games champion with a throw of 18.31 metres. The gold in Naples gave her the confidence she needed heading into the Pan American Games and World Championships.

Unfortunately, Mitton suffered an untimely cold in the countdown to the Pan American Games where she put in an average performance to finish sixth. Fatigue kicked in at the end of the season, and she failed to advance to the final at the World Championships, with a best throw of 17.24 metres in the qualification round.

Determined to take the positives out of a gold medal winning season, Mitton took a few months off and returned to the shot put circle in February of 2020, embarking on a month-long trip Down Under alongside her training partners, Brittany Crew and Trinity Tutti, where she clinched the biggest win of her career and her spot at the Tokyo Olympic Games.

Short in stature she may be, but possessing a quiet determination, a quality coach, mental toughness and top-class training partners, Mitton is sure the best is yet to come. To date, no Canadian woman has ever advanced to an Olympic final in shot put, let alone in their Summer Games debut, but both Mitton and Crew plan to change that statistic in Tokyo.