USA Track & Field – News – Three-time USATF Indoor Champion Gwen Berry shatters women’s hammer American record

TUCSON — Gwen Berry (St. Louis, Missouri), three-time USATF Indoor Champion, looks poised and ready for a stunning 2016, as she followed up her USATF Indoor title in March with an American record outdoors in the women’s hammer throw Saturday.

Berry launched the hammer 76.31m/250-4 on her third throw of the day to break Amanda Bingson’s previous mark of 75.73m/248-5 from the 2013 USATF Outdoor Championships. Berry already had the Olympic Games and U.S. Olympic Trials standards in the women’s hammer throw, and her PB is second in the world in 2016.

Berry captured USATF Athlete of the Week honors in 2014 after winning gold at the Pan American Sports Festival in Mexico City, Mexico. As a collegian at Southern Illinois, the newly-minted American record holder qualified for her first national team in 2010, when she represented Team USA at the NACAC Under-23 Championships in Miramar, Florida.

This is the fifth American record of 2016 for USATF elite athletes: Berry (women’s hammer throw), Michelle Carter (women’s indoor shot put), Natasha Hastings (women’s indoor 300m), Maria Michta-Coffey (women’s 10km race walk – road) and Jenn Suhr (women’s indoor pole vault – also a world record).
 
Amanda Brooks
Marketing and Communications Manager
USA Track & Field
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