PENNSYLVANIA, USA — A Hershey native is bringing home the gold for Team USA--and not the kind that comes with chocolate wrapped inside.
On Sunday, Valarie Allman became the first woman from the States to win back-to-back Olympic discus gold medals.
She was originally trained as a dancer before deciding to join track and field her freshman year of high school as a jumper and sprinter.
But Allman, 29, didn't start out with Olympic dreams. No, she took up the sport for a similarly worthy cause--getting invited to the annual spaghetti dinner that the throwers had every year, according to Team USA.
Raised mostly in Hershey, Allman eventually moved to Colorado, where she graduated co-valedictorian of Silver Creek High with a 4.4 weighted GPA. She continued her education in California, earning a degree in Product Design from Stanford University in 2017.
Now Allman calls Longmont, Colorado home.
Her first Olympic experience was the Tokyo Games in 2020, when she won her first gold. Allman has also claimed a silver and a bronze medal at the World Athletics Championships in 2023 and 2022, respectively. She competed in 2017 and 2019 as well but did not medal.
After winning in Tokyo, she realized she needed to dial back on the discus training. It had become her sole focus in and out of the global pandemic.
“I think I might be the only person in the world that probably had too much discus in their life,” Allman joked. “When you want to be as good as you can at something, you slowly start making sacrifices, and you don’t realize that it’s happening.”
To scale back, she bought a house and hung out with friends.
“Such basic things,” Allman said. “When I went out to perform, I said that no matter how it played out, I’m so grateful that I get to do what I love. No matter if I get a medal, whatever color it is, if I don’t get a medal, this is going to be a night that I’m proud of the fight that I showed. I think there was something freeing in that.”
Early on, Allman showed some jitters by fouling on her first attempt.
“I felt the weight of like, ‘Holy crap, this is the Olympics,’” Allman explained. “It took me a minute to find my groove.”
She went 68.74 meters (225-6) on her second throw and 69.50 (228-0) on her fourth. It was enough to beat Feng Bin of China and Sandra Elkasevic of Croatia.
“Pressure is becoming my friend,” Allman said. “I think it’s one of those things I’ve learned can bring out the best in you if you embrace it.
“To walk into the ring having one attempt left and knowing I’d already won, it was hard fighting back tears.”