The Cal 100: No. 39 -- Camryn Rogers
We count down the top 100 individuals associated with Cal athletics, based on their impact in sports or in the world at large – a wide-open category. See if you agree.
No. 39: Camryn Rogers
Cal Sports Connection: Rogers won the hammer throw at the Pac-12 Championships and the NCAA Championships each of her final three seasons at Cal and finished her college career with the 12 longest throws in history.
Claim to Fame: She qualified for the Olympic final at Tokyo in 2021 while still a Cal undergrad and won a silver medal at the World Championships last summer.
.
On the eve of the World Track and Field Championships last summer in Eugene, Oregon, Cal throws coach Mo Saatara was feeling optimistic about the chances of Camryn Rogers in the women’s hammer throw.
But he was also taking the long view.
“She’s only going to go from here,” Saatara said. “She still learning. She’s not a finished product yet.”
Rogers, who had just completed a spectacular college career, delivered a silver-medal performance at the Worlds — the highest finish ever at the global event by a Golden Bear athlete, male or female.
Silver medalist Camryn Rogers, left, poses with her fellow medal winners at the 2022 World Championships.
Photo by Kirby Lee, USA Today
And while her best days still seem ahead of her, what Rogers has achieved by age 24 is substantial enough to earn her a No. 39 ranking in The Cal 100.
Here’s a sampling of her credits:
— Rogers was a three-time Pac-12 champion in the hammer and a three-time NCAA champion, assembling a flawless postseason record from her sophomore season in 2019 through her senior year in 2022 (the pandemic canceled the 2020 outdoor season).
— She was unbeaten in her final 19 competitions against collegiate athletes and in 2022 became Cal’s first top-3 finalist for the Bowerman Award, given to the nation’s most accomplished male and female track and field athletes.
— The British Columbia native repeatedly broke the all-time collegiate record and finished her Cal career with the 12 longest throws in NCAA history. Her record toss of 254 feet, 10 inches (77.67 meters) is nearly 10 feet beyond what any other college woman has done.
— At the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, while still an undergrad, Rogers placed fifth — the highest Olympic finish by a Canadian woman in the hammer and equal to the highest finish by a Cal woman in any track and field event.
— Rogers unleashed a career-best throw of 257-11 (78.62 meters) in Los Angeles on May 26, putting her No. 2 on the 2023 world list and lifting her to No. 5 all-time.
Camryn Rogers prepares to unleash a throw.
Photo by Catharyn Hayne, KLC fotos
As her post-collegiate careers get started, Rogers continues to live in the Bay Area, in part because of the success she has enjoyed training under Saatara.
“Trusting your coach is the most important aspect of a relationship you can have with him,” Rogers said last year. “Having that relationship with coach Mo and knowing that it’s constantly growing and developing . . . I feel like every day we find things to learn about one another and new things he can use to better coach me.”
After her big performance at Los Angeles, Rogers spent much of June competing in Europe, where she won two of four meets, finishing second to reigning world champ Brooke Andersen of the United States in competitive duels in the other two.
Andersen and Rogers will renew their budding rivalry at the World Championships in Budapest this summer. The women’s hammer throw final is scheduled for Aug. 6.
Rogers will then get the chance to compete in her second Olympics in 2024 when the Games visit Paris for the first time in 100 years.
Canada’s recordholder in the hammer, Rogers won the 2017 U20 Pan American Championships in Trujillo, Peru the summer before enrolling at Cal. She captured the 2018 U20 World Championships at Tampere, Finland following her freshman campaign.
Last summer, following the Worlds, she captured a gold medal at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England, setting a meet record in the process.
Cover photo of former Cal hammer throw star Camryn Rogers
Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo