Cal Track and Field: Camryn Rogers Ready to Defend NCAA Hammer Throw Title

The junior from Canada hopes to repeat the collegiate title she won in 2019.

The Olympic Games in Tokyo loom this summer for Camryn Rogers, but she has serious business to take care of first this week in Eugene, Oregon.

“It’s something I’ve waited for for two years,” she said.

Rogers, Cal’s junior hammer throw specialist from Richmond, British Columbia, will step into the ring at Hayward Field on Thursday to defend her title at the NCAA Track and Field Championships.

“I am so excited to be able to go into Eugene and get back into nationals,” said Rogers, who won the crown in 2019 before a worldwide pandemic wiped out the 2020 collegiate track season. “It’s always a huge meet. There’s always crazy things that happen on that day. But we’ve been there before. We know what it takes."

Rogers can check a few more career achievement boxes if she delivers a victory:

— She would become the first Cal athlete to defend a title at the NCAA outdoor meet since Sheila Hudson, who won the triple jump at the collegiate nationals in 1987, ’88 and ’90.

— She would join Southern Illinois’ DeAnna Price (2015-16), Georgia Jenny Dahlgren (2006-07), Florida’s Candice Scott (2003-04), South Carolina’s Dawn Ellerbe (1996-97) and three-time champ Florence Ezeh (1999-2000-01) of SMU as the NCAA’s only multiple winners in the event.

— She would extend her win streak to 11 consecutive meets against collegiate competition, dating back more than two calendar years.

Rogers is the favorite to win the event that begins Thursday at 1 p.m., a different role than she had at the 2019 meet. It changes nothing, she said.

“No matter what, your job is to go there and execute and get the job done. That was our plan going into nationals two years ago. That’s our plan going into nationals (this) week,” Rogers said. “The goal, the objective, is not different. That’s important — that consistency, always keeping your eye on the prize, always keeping your mind at that high level, knowing exactly what you want to achieve and knowing how to do it.”

Being forced to miss competing a year ago may actually have paid some unexpected dividends, Rogers believes. Focusing strictly on her training, without concern for a schedule of meets, allowed her to learn “what it means to be a hammer thrower,” she said.

“Getting the time to do that, work on little things, create that stable foundation. I recently heard someone say, `You need to raise the floor in order to raise the ceiling.’ I think that’s the perfect way of explaining how we do our training.”

Rogers will be right at home in Track Town USA, where she made her personal-best and NCAA-leading throw of 239 feet, 9 inches back on April 17. That mark makes Rogers the No. 4 all-time performer in collegiate history and leaves her just 4 feet, 9 inches shy of the record of 244-6, set three years ago by Maggie Ewen of Arizona State.

In preparation for the 2022 World Championships — the first to ever be held in the U.S. — Oregon totally revamped and expanded century-old Hayward Field, the legendary facility where the likes of Steve Prefontaine once ran.

Rogers believes the setting contributed to her big throw in April and can help her again Thursday.

“Part of it was the excitement of being in the new stadium. They constructed this stadium for Worlds next year,” she said. “It’s beautiful, it has a great energy in it that feels very professional.”

“They did a great job of getting the essence of what a track stadium should be,” said Mo Saatara, Cal’s throws coach. “When I was a really young kid and I saw a meet at the Coliseum in L.A., it’s got that sort of feel to it. Where you go, `OK, something big’s going to happen here.’ ”

The competition will be fierce. Seven other athletes have thrown at least 225 feet, and few rivals will be more motivated to beat Rogers than UCLA junior Alyssa Wilson, the most recent thrower to get the best of her Cal opponent.

“It’s a Herculean effort to repeat,” Saatara said. “There are very, very strong throwers across the country now in the hammer. It’s not going to be something where you just walk away from it. For victory, you have to fight every step of the way.”

Rogers is excited for the opportunity.

“It’s a fantastic environment. The competition is going to be at a very high level, which is exactly what you want for a huge meet, for a national championship,” she said. “I feel very ready.”

Cover photo of Camryn Rogers by Al Sermeno, KLC fotos

Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo