Janee’ Kassanavoid likens the hammer throw to poetry. And complete chaos. It’s beautiful and it’s powerful. She loves it, she hates it.
Once she begins to spin in the ring, swinging the 8.8-pound hammer around before launching it, nothing is on her mind. She tries to let everything go and trust her training to create a perfect throw.
Advertisement
It takes one little thing to disrupt the chaos, or the poetry. Even if it feels right, it might not be enough.
Five centimeters, the length of a matchstick, got between Kassanavoid and the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo. She finished fourth in the U.S. trials.
“I think that moment was what I needed to turn around and use 2021 as it played out,” Kassanavoid said before the 2024 Olympic trials, which begin Friday in Eugene, Ore. “It definitely made me more motivated and lit that fire to grow and to become like a better thrower.”
That fire turned into a historic bronze medal at the 2022 world championships. A member of the Comanche Nation, Kassanavoid is believed to be the first Native American woman to medal at worlds.
She followed it up with the silver medal at worlds in 2023.
Kassanavoid has built a platform — she has more than 600,000 followers on TikTok. She’s become one of the best in the world at one of the more unusual events in the Olympics, one that only started for women in 2000, even though its origins date back centuries.
“For hammer throw, I think it’s the one (sport) that people actually may watch and say, ‘Oh my God, I can never do that,'” said Greg Watson, Kassanavoid’s coach.
When it’s time for the track and field events at the Olympics, the track part gets most of the attention — the 100-meter dash, the relays. This year in Paris, though, the American throwers are primed for success. At the 2023 world championships, American women won gold and silver in discus, gold in shot put, and silver and bronze in hammer.
Whenever he’s asked about Kassanavoid’s journey and what could be coming this summer, Watson said 2021 is on his mind.
“We were so close,” he said. “Five centimeters away. She’s learned so much more about herself in that time. Since that moment, she’s become more confident than I’ve ever seen her in her abilities and what she’s capable of.”
Advertisement
The miss in 2021 has led to this moment, and Kassanavoid knows what an Olympic bid can mean for her true calling.
“If I would have quit and would have given up,” she said, “I would have done myself an injustice to the bigger purpose in life.”
Kassanavoid played just about every sport growing up.
Except hammer.
Born into a “naturally gifted, athletic family,” Kassanavoid — the youngest of four — remembers constantly playing outside with her siblings and her father, Ron, after he would come home from work.
“No matter how tired, no matter how much overtime, whatever he was doing, it was always like, ‘Let’s go play catch,'” she said. “‘Let’s practice all the time.'”
When Janee’ was 9 years old, Ron died of cancer. She didn’t get the same coaching and relationship with him as her brother and sisters, but she said her love for sports — and work ethic — comes from Ron.
When she got to high school, Janee’ threw just because she could. There wasn’t much coaching — they would skip the warm-up lap, “threw some things around for 30 minutes and were like, ‘All right, that’s it,'” she said.
She soon realized her best way to get a scholarship for college was through track and field, and in the fall of 2013, Kassanavoid attended her first practice at Johnson County Community College. Her coach said, “I hope you know you’re going to be a hammer thrower, right?”
Kassanavoid’s knowledge of the hammer was limited to a scene in the movie “Matilda,” in which Principal Trunchbull “throws” a girl by her pigtails, like a hammer.
At her first practice, her teammates taught her how to hold and wind the hammer. Her coach told her to practice turns, over and over again. So, she spun. And spun. And spun.
“When people ask me now and they see my TikTok videos, ‘Do you not get nauseous or dizzy?’ I was like, that ran its course the first day of practice,” she said. “All I did was turn and turn and turn until I wanted to blow chunks everywhere.”
Advertisement
Six months later, Kassanavoid was in New York for the NJCAA national indoor championships, participating in both the shot put, in which she finished 11th, and the weight — an indoor event that mimics a hammer throw with a heavier implement. She finished in second.
Watson, also a Kansas State assistant coach, was on hand to watch another athlete when he spotted Kassanavoid throwing the weight. He could tell she wasn’t experienced in the event, but he saw something.
“What I look for is … there’s just a unique connection to the implement that you’re throwing that is really valuable for me for that event,” he said. “A lot of times that’s something that is inherently there. She had a really good connection to the implements.”
Watson connected with Kassanavoid. She had no idea who he was. She hadn’t necessarily thought about her potential as a hammer thrower. But he was offering her a scholarship at Kansas State.
When he talked to her about visiting, she said she didn’t need to. When he asked for her email address and it included “Kansas State” and her brother’s football number, he realized this would be an easy recruitment.
That May, Kassanavoid won the NJCAA outdoor championship in the hammer throw, having participated in the event for less than a year.
Kassanavoid may have athletic gifts, but her earlier days on the basketball court meant trouble with her knees. She underwent three separate surgeries at Kansas State, losing about a year of training, Watson said.
She injured her knee two weeks before the 2017 Big 12 championships, but still won. The next year, she repeated as conference champion while setting the school record at 68.21 meters, a mark that stood for five years.
Kassanavoid then began her professional career. She’s gotten accustomed to the dialogue that comes when she meets people.
Advertisement
“It kind of sounds cool, but I still feel like being a hammer thrower, you always have to validate yourself and make yourself seem like you’re good enough,” Kassanavoid said, “because people just aren’t familiar with it and what it takes to be at this level.”
When the 2022 season began, nine months after the near-miss at trials, Kassanavoid came out with a 76.82-meter throw in Kenya, then a personal record. She bested it two weeks later, on May 21, with 78 meters in Tucson, which still stands as her career-best.
For football fans, picture Kassanavoid letting the hammer go from the goal line and it landing in the red zone, 85 yards away.
But she said her tank was running low by the end of the season. Still, she made it to the world championships in Eugene and made history with the bronze medal.
“Monumental,” she said of her historic medal. “A lot of firsts. But I think it really just kind of allowed me to be like, ‘Hey, you deserve this.'”
In 2023, though, Kassanavoid battled injury. Throughout the season, she did not get a personal record, the ultimate mark of progress. When it came time for nationals, where the top four American throwers would advance to the world championships, she needed her last throw to get on the podium.
“Last throw, best throw,” is one of Kassanavoid’s mantras, and that got her third place and a trip to Budapest, but it was a struggle.
“We were being dragged through the mud,” she said. “I could not believe that this was happening. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m struggling. I can’t feel the hammer. I feel like it’s going 76 meters and it’s only going 70, 71.'”
Last throw, best throw. Her third and final qualifying throw in Budapest got her into the top 12, advancing to the finals. Barely.
And then, something clicked.
“Whatever switch she turned on and in her mind or body or wherever that switch was, she showed up and just looked like an ace,” Watson said. “She looked really, really strong, really confident in what she was going to do. That final, she put together the best series of her life. We were both pretty proud of that one.”
Kassanavoid’s top throw, 76.36 meters, earned her the silver medal, second best in the world leading into an Olympic year.
Kassanavoid always knew she was part of the Comanche Nation, through her father, but it wasn’t necessarily a major part of her upbringing. She learned more at Kansas State and then during her first year as a professional, she started to connect with people in her family and community.
“What is my purpose beyond throwing hammer?” she said. “… I just wanted to do more for the sport than throw heavy things far.”
Advertisement
Kassanavoid’s success helped her meet more people and learn more not only about her Comanche traditions, but “what it means to live in the United States and to be Native American.”
Nike has also spotlighted Kassanavoid with its N7 collection, which is meant to “provide sport and physical activity programming to kids in Native American and Aboriginal communities.”
“When you see me on television, on the track, on the field with the hammer, you see who I represent,” she said. “People that look like me who are native, who are indigenous, and that we are still here today. Representation means everything for our people.”
Said Watson: “She kind of realized how unique she is in that way and the audience that she’s able to capture with what she does. … That’s the part of the sport that I feel is really important, when you have that ability to inspire someone else and to teach someone else.”
As Kassanavoid did her lap with the American flag around her following her bronze medal finish in 2022 in Eugene, the daughter of one of the volunteers came down to the track to present Kassanavoid with hand-beaded Comanche earrings.
“That was kind of a real moment for me like, yes, I see people on social media, I read the comments, I feel the love and support, but truly meeting someone in person and sharing the impact that I have on them, truly feeling the heart warming,” she said, “that puts me over the moon.”
That day, when Kassanavoid broke through with her first medal at worlds, Watson told her how proud her father would have been.
“He was going to love me no matter what. But it’s just kind of what I’ve always used and what’s heavy on my heart to be successful and to keep pushing me and to never give up just to make my dad proud,” she said. “And I knew he was looking down at me in that moment and he was very proud.”
UPGRADED 🥈 x 🇺🇸 x 🔨
a WIN, not only for me but a WIN for my coach, my family, and my nation. Comanche Nation. I couldn’t have done this without the strength, the power, and the resilience of my people behind me.
SEE ME, SEE US. 🪶🤍 pic.twitter.com/4JZPOILIix
— NaeThrowsHeavyRock (@JaneeNae24) August 26, 2023
The 2024 season began with a win for Kassanavoid at the Kip Keino Classic in Nairobi. Her throw of 75.99 meters is the seventh-best in her career.
She enters trials ranked third in the world. Her throw from Kenya is the fourth-best in the world this season, trailing Americans DeAnna Price and Brooke Anderson and Canadian Camryn Rogers.
Advertisement
Nearly 11 years after she picked up a hammer for the first time, Kassanavoid is at the top of her sport — but she’s still trying to master it. She has more goals, and more opportunities to be a role model.
Whenever she talks about her father, her family, the Comanche Nation or what her purpose is, Kassanavoid gets emotional. She’s always thinking about the little girls in braids who may want to pick up a hammer themselves one day.
“I think just stepping into this role of a leader and a role model as an indigenous woman and as an athlete, my footprint and my goal in my legacy is to just leave life better than like I came into it,” she said. “It’s always emotional when I talk about it, but I just know that my purpose and my goal is. It’s more than me throwing a hammer far.
“It’s to be that person.”
(Top photo of Janee’ Kassanavoid with her historic bronze medal: Ben Stansall / AFP via Getty Images)