The combined population of Allora, Queensland and Ramona, Oklahoma is less than two thousand people. But what these small towns lack in size they more than make up for in discus pedigree. On Sunday, Allora’s favourite son Matthew Denny set what would have been a new discus world record with a monster throw in Ramona, only for Lithuanian rival Mykolas Alekna to twice extend the record in the same meet.
Despite being upstaged by Alekna, Denny’s 74.78m throw – a personal best and new Oceania record – cements the Queenslander’s status amid rarefied throwing company. At last year’s Paris Olympics, Denny won bronze – the first medal for an Australian man in a Games throwing event. His improvement since suggests Denny is not done yet.
Ramona is an unusual place for an international athletics event. A rail-road, a few diners, a fire department – the small American town would otherwise hardly attract international attention. But a site on the town’s outskirts, Millican Field, has emerged as a hub for the world’s best discus throwers. So much so that the venue has its own nickname: Throw Town. The local weather provides wind conditions favourable to big throws, helping Alekna and Denny to their milestones last week (unlike track events, there is no limit on maximum permissible tail-winds in the field).
Ramona would have felt strangely like home for Denny. Allora, in the Darling Downs in south-east Queensland, 60km outside Toowoomba, has few people and plenty of wide-open landscapes. As Denny’s Australian Athletics profile explains, Denny enjoyed a childhood with “lots of space to throw things”. After switching from rugby league to athletics in his teenage years, Denny’s family built him a discus circle on their country property.
The Australian soon emerged as an international discus talent – finishing fourth at the U20 world championships in 2014, and qualifying for the Rio Games two years later. By the 2019 world championships, he was among the best in the world, placing sixth. A fourth-place finish at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 followed, plus gold at the Commonwealth Games a year later. Another fourth followed at the 2023 world championships, and then at last the elusive podium spot in Paris.
The towering Australian – 1.96m tall – had emotion evident in his voice after winning bronze last year. Denny revealed he had prepared for the final by watching an advertisement produced by Qantas, featuring his pre-Games farewell at Allora’s local pub, the Railway.
“I just wanted another look at the group of people who were in that shot – 120 of my closest supporters, family and friends,” he said. “They’ve always been there for me – no matter what, and never doubted what I wanted to do.” The Railway had opened at 4am for locals to watch Denny’s quest for an Olympic medal; he joked that he hoped the tab was not being added to his account. “I’m just a product of people putting their lives into my ability and I’m so grateful for those people,” he said.
But less than an hour after winning bronze last August, Denny’s mind had already turned to the future – the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles and the prospect of a home Games in Brisbane in 2024. “I 100% believe there’s still so much more there,” he said. “We’re not done yet.”
Denny will have stiff competition in the fight for a world or Olympic title in the years ahead. Alekna, just 22, is the son of two-time Olympic discus champion Virgilijus Alekna; Alekna junior won silver, behind Jamaica’s Rojé Stona, in Paris. In the months before the Games, Alekna set a new world record mark at Throw Town – breaking a record that had stood since the 1980s. On Sunday, he twice topped his own world record. But Denny is not far behind.
The excitement in Ramona coincided with Australia’s national athletics championships, half a world away in Perth. Denny made the decision to skip the national titles in favour of the international event – a decision-justified by a week of big throws from the Australian.
But the two events underline the remarkable resurgence of Australian athletics. Gout Gout’s sub-10 100m and sub-20 200m (albeit wind-affected), Leah O’Brien’s stunning record-breaking sprint, Peter Bol’s return to form, Rohan Browning’s comeback, the high-jump rivalry between Nicola Olyslagers and Eleanor Patterson and middle-distance prodigy Cameron Myers – Australian athletics has rarely seen a time of such interest and elite pedigree. With the world championships in Tokyo in September, the U20 world titles in the United States and the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow next year, the road to Los Angeles has already begun.
From one small rural town to another, Denny is throwing for discus glory – just as Australian athletics is reaching new heights. More big throws, more records and more medals seemingly await the Allora local.
