Annette Echikunwoke earns redemption and passage to Paris 2024 in hammer throw at U.S. Trials: 'This is just the beginning'
If at first you don't succeed, try try again.
Annette Echikunwoke has earned her first U.S. hammer throw title at the 2024 U.S. Olympic Team Trials – Track and Field, and with it - her passage to Paris 2024.
This marks the 27-year-old Echikunwoke's second time qualifying for the Olympics, but it will be her first time competing, and her first time representing Team USA.
For Tokyo 2020 in 2021, the Ohio-born Echikunwoke - whose parents are both from Nigeria - qualified to compete representing her family’s home nation.
In a devastating turn, Echikunwoke was among of group of Nigerian athletes disqualified for missing doping screenings due to an administrative error, and therefore was deemed unable to compete. She was informed of this on-site in Tokyo on her birthday, 29 July.
Echikunwoke shared that she grieved this loss for months, before finding peace in forgiveness. Three years later, Echikunwoke has again qualified, this time for the U.S.
"It’s redemption," she told a small group of reporters on Sunday (23 June). "I'm so grateful to God for putting me in this position and helping to get to this. I knew it was coming. But I didn't know when and how, but I was just trusting him in this process.”
At the U.S. Trials in Eugene, Oregon, Echikunwoke’s first throw of 245 feet (74.68m) proved to be unbeatable through all six heats.
Echikunwoke said that her mindset going into the event was just to relax: “Usually the first throw for me is the most relaxed and steady, and we build from there," she explained. "[But] that one won me the meet so, yeah, I’m so happy.”
Echikunwoke will be heading to Paris 2024 with two-time global medalist and 2019 world champion DeAnna Price, who is set for her third Olympic Games.
Erin Reese took third place at Trials, although she has yet to meet the Olympic standard. Rachel Tanczos, who does hold the standard, finished in fourth.
Annette Echikunwoke springs upset in hammer final
At the Trials, Echikunwok out-threw both 2022 world champion Brooke Andersen - who fouled out on her third attempt - and 2023 world silver-medallist Janee' Kassanavoid, who finished in sixth.
Her win at the Trials marks her first national title. Last year, Echikunwoke finished fifth at the U.S. Championship finals with Canada’s Camryn Rogers the victor and Kassanavoid and Price in second and third.
At the close of competition, when asked whether she had more to give heading into Paris, Echikunwoke said: “I believe that there's so much more inside of me to come out. And I really feel like this is just the beginning and the start of what's to come and what we're going to build off of.”
Echikunwoke previously set her career-best throw of 247-8 (75.49m) in 2021.
Looking ahead to Paris, the Ohioan lit up when asked what she was looking forward to in Paris, “Cincinnati Bearcats!" she shouted, an alumnus of the University of Cincinnati.
"I'm so excited to represent them on the big stage in Paris!”