“You get strong fingertips,” Crouser said in an interview after his third Olympic gold in a row
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Ryan Crouser poses on the set of the “Today” show
The key to Ryan Crouser’s success lies in his fingertips!
The 31-year-old Olympic champion demonstrated the difference between the hand he uses when shooting and the hand he doesn’t use when shooting. Show todaynoting that one of them was much taller than the other due to his Olympic training.
“Shot put hand,” said Crouser, pointing to the Today Host on August 5. “And a hand that is not suited for shot put,” he said, showing his left hand. “So you can see the right (hand) is quite a bit bigger.”
“My hand only goes as far as that,” he continued, demonstrating his shot put skills before asking if any of the hosts wanted to try “pressing” his hand.
Related: Ryan Crouser wins historic 3rd consecutive Olympic gold medal in shot put
When host Al Roker tried it, the Olympian showed that his right hand “doesn’t move” because of the “little muscles in the finger” that he had trained to perform better in his sport.
Hoda Kotb interjected: “So these are muscular fingers.”
“Yeah, so 16 pounds bouncing off your fingertips at almost 40 miles an hour. That’s how you get strong fingertips,” Crouser explained.
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These strong fingertips helped him win his third consecutive Olympic gold medal on August 3 at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. In his third attempt, he achieved his season’s best of 22.90 meters and secured the victory.
Crouser had previously revealed that he had considered becoming an NFL football player before winning his first Olympic gold medal. He told the NBC broadcast: Football on Sunday evening announced that he had “planned” an open tryout with the Indianapolis Colts before his first Olympic Games in 2016.
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Ryan Crouser will compete in the men’s shot put final at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.
Related: Inside the crazy diet and world record career of Olympic gold medalist Ryan Crouser
“And I said I’ll do it after the Olympic trials. We’ll see how it goes,” he recalled. “I made the Olympic team. So I said we’ll wait until Rio. In the end, I won.”
“And so I said I’ll probably stick with this shot put thing for a while,” he added.
Fellow American Joe Kovacs took silver behind Crouser on August 3 with a best throw of 22.15 meters, while Rajindra Campbell of Jamaica won bronze.
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Although U.S. team shot putter Payton Otterdahl finished fourth in the shot put with a throw of 22.03 meters, he still had reason to smile after revealing on Instagram that he proposed to his girlfriend Maddy Nilles while touring Paris after the shot put competition.
“Meanwhile, in the city of love… I love you forever, Maddy Nilles! @maddynilles27 ❤️,” the athlete captioned the post.
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