Camryn Rogers

Biography

Camryn Rogers became Canada’s first ever Olympic medallist in women’s hammer throw when she won the gold medal at Paris 2024 with a best throw of 76.97m. It was Canada’s first Olympic gold medal in any women’s athletics event in 96 years.

Rogers was no stranger to making history. In her Olympic debut at Tokyo 2020, she had been the first Canadian woman to ever advance into an Olympic hammer throw final and went on to finish fifth overall with a best effort of 74.35m. She was the youngest competitor in that final by almost two years. 

In 2023, Rogers became Canada’s first ever world champion in women’s hammer throw, which followed the silver medal she had won at the 2022 World Athletics Championships. In her debut at the global meet, Rogers became the first Canadian woman to ever win a world championship medal in a field event.

Rogers’ world title came a few months after she had set the Canadian record at 78.62m in late May 2023, breaking her own mark she had set just over a month earlier. It made her the fifth-best women’s hammer thrower all-time. That had erased the national record of 77.67m she set in early June 2022 to win her third NCAA title. Rogers closed out the 2022 season by capturing gold at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England.

Rogers won the 2016 Canadian U20 titles in both shot put and hammer throw and made her major international meet debut later that year at the U20 World Athletics Championships, competing in hammer throw. In 2017 Rogers’ focus turned to the hammer throw and she repeated as the U20 Canadian champion. A few weeks after that she represented Canada at the U20 Pan American Championships and won the gold medal.

In 2018 Rogers made her second appearance at the U20 World Championships and won the gold medal. She would be awarded the Eric E. Coy Trophy as Canada’s top U20 track and field athlete of the year.

In 2019 she competed in her first senior Canadian Championships but came away with a familiar result: gold. She also made her debut with the senior national team at the Lima 2019 Pan Am Games, where she finished sixth.

After not competing in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Rogers eclipsed the Olympic entry standard for Tokyo 2020 with a then-personal best throw of 73.09m in April 2021 during an NCAA meet in Eugene, Oregon. She bettered that at the NCAA Championships in early June as she threw 75.52m to win the NCAA title. That ranked her as the fifth-best athlete in the world on the season and broke her own Canadian U23 record.  

Rogers competed collegiately for the University of California. As a freshman she finished on the podium in every event of the season, claiming bronze at the PAC-12 Championships before a 13th place finish at the NCAA West prelims. In 2019 as a sophomore with the Bears, she won the PAC-12 and NCAA titles. Her 71.50m to win the national title set a then-personal best and then U23 national record.

A Little More About Camryn

Getting into the Sport: Was introduced to track and field in January 2012 and entered her first competition that April… Fell in love with hammer throw the moment she first picked one up and competed with it in June 2012… While watching the hammer throwers wide-eyed at London 2012 she knew she wanted to compete for Canada…  Outside Interests: Graduated from the University of California with a Masters in Cultural Studies in Sport and Education after dual majoring in society and environment and political economy…Hobbies include reading, watching documentaries, hiking and biking, going to concerts… Odds and Ends: Always brings a silver pendant given to her by her high school coach to each competition… Brings back coffee beans from places where she competes to experience the uniqueness of the coffee from different countries… Favourite motto: “Never train to settle”…