Deanna Price to compete in third Olympic Games

CHAMPAIGN (WCIA) — Illinois Assistant Coach Deanna Price has had quite the journey to qualify for the Olympics, in a sport many may be unfamiliar with.

“It’s an 8.8-pound ball so, if you ever go in your kitchen, pick up like a cast iron skillet,” Price said.

“I can generate up to 70 miles per hour and I could throw it almost the length of a football field and you have to throw it between two cage doors, and do it within a seven-foot diameter ring.”

Price is one of the top hammer throwers in the world and spent the summer training for her third Olympic games on campus at Illinois.

“It’s a great throwing field. It’s a great facility.”

Her path to Paris has been far from easy.
After an eighth place finish at the 2016 games, she entered Tokyo as the favorite to win gold.

“But at trials a week prior, I didn’t know it, but I actually broke my ankle, and I kept throwing on it, kept throwing on it. We didn’t know exactly what was wrong,” Price said.

Two full reconstructive surgeries later, she entered the 2023 Worlds with an open mind, and finished third.

“So for us, we didn’t really think Paris was a possibility until I won bronze in Budapest,” Price said.

Then a second place finish at trials, and she was officially a three-time Olympian.

Her training process this time around has been totally different, focusing on technique as much as her mindset.

“This is a new game, this new kind of new experience that, you know, God willing, going and healthy and hopefully, you know, walk away with something hopefully around my neck,” Price said.

And while she hasn’t ruled out a run at LA 2028, the new passion she’s found as a volunteer coach has proven to be rewarding in its own way.

“For me, my goal is to impact the future. I’m a good hammer thrower. I know I’m a good hammer thrower, but what I want to do is to leave a legacy of like I mean, I feel like a mom, like these are my babies, you know? And that’s the thing is, you know, I want them to develop their lives. And what coach Lambert and I do with these kids is not only really good throwers, we want them to be good people,” Price said.

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