Thrower Wright feels sense of triumph…minus the medal
EUGENE, Oregon — Walking into the discus circle on Sunday afternoon at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon, the third day of the World Athletics Championships, was maybe the calmest time discus thrower Chad Wright had experienced in the five or six days leading up to the start of the competition.
A “misinterpretation of a telephone conversation with a former coach” delayed him being issued with a US entry visa, he told Jamaican journalists after his competition on Sunday.
He eventually got the travel documents, booked his flight, flew out of Kingston Friday morning and got to Eugene very early Saturday morning, he said “and it was pretty much a mad scramble to get ready for competition” Sunday afternoon.
After all that, Wright, the Olympic finalist last year, threw 60.31m to finish 25th of the 30 throwers who showed up and said in light of all that happened, “I would say its okay. It’s not what I wanted but looking back at all that has happened, I will be okay with it at some point in time but right now I am just trying to process everything right now.”
Wright, who will head to the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, UK, next week said he was just happy he got the chance to throw.
“I wanted to make sure that I got the opportunity to represent and I just did not want to waste a year of training,” he said. “Walking into the circle I wanted to execute, even though I did not feel 100 per cent, but told myself ‘If a dirt, a dirt.’ “
— Paul Reid