Lions thrower Brittany Crew moved one step closer to qualifying for the 2016 Rio Olympics Thursday, May 19 as she hit the Olympic standard in the shot put at the Tucson Elite Throwers Classic at the University of Arizona.
After setting an outdoor personal best with a toss of 17.57m two weeks at a meet in Kingston, Jamaica, Crew again set a personal best with a 17.78-m throw on her second attempt, besting the Olympic qualifying standard of 17.75m by three centimetres.
Crew followed up her second attempt by besting the Olympic standard again with a 17.76m throw. Overall she placed second in the event behind two-time USA Olympian Jillian Camarena-Williams who finished first at 17.88m.
She’ll now set her sights on the Canadian Track & Field Championships in Edmonton on July 7-10, which doubles as the Olympic Trials for selection to the 2016 Olympic team. A top-three finish in Edmonton will earn Crew a spot on the Olympic Team.
Crew won nearly everything possible this year in the Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) league, en route to establishing herself as one of the best throwers in the country. She set personal bests in the weight throw and shot put at the York Open in the middle of the season and swept the gold medals in both events at the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) and CIS championships. She also set the CIS Championships record in the shot put and earned the OUA and CIS field events athlete of the year awards and was also a two-time first-team OUA all-star and CIS first-team all-Canadian.