For U.S. weight throw champ Price, good health means the world (record)

Feb. 17—DeAnna Price could feel it in warmups. Watching the weight fly through the air. Seeing where it landed, furiously rolling to a stop.

"You're right on that verge of things exploding," she said, voice wobbling with joy, "or blowing up."

On Friday afternoon at the USATF Indoor Championships, Price exploded. The Troy, Missouri, native turned four times, screamed and released a 20-pound weight 25.77 meters from the ring, shattering Janeah Stewart and Gwen Berry's previous world record of 25.60 meters.

Price laughed. She cried. Hugged her competitors, hugged friends, hugged anybody in sight.

Then she got back in the ring, turned four times, screamed and released another throw. 26.02 meters, another world record in the weight throws and the high-mark for one of the greatest fields in the history of the event.

"We knew something big was in the tank," she laughed. "We didn't know how big."

Comeback stories have dotted this year's indoor championships and Price, 30, has one of her own. A former NCAA and world champion, she set a new American record in the hammer throw with an 80.31 meter toss at the 2021 Olympic Trials.

It came at a cost. Price snapped the tip of her fibula in the week before trials, gritting out a record, and by the time she was able to train for the 2022 World Championships, she was five months removed from a complete ankle reconstruction, four months from an additional hip surgery.

"There'd be one day I'd feel fantastic," she said of her training. "And then the next day, I couldn't walk."

Price's mind knew all too well what she wanted her body to do. But it just couldn't. Slowly, she found herself spending hours wondering whether each day was going to be good or bad — with no in between.

"A lot of athletes have a hard time competing after one surgery," J.C. Lambert, husband and coach, said. "And when I say hard time, I mean hard time competing at 100% like their old self — much less, two that fall on the same leg."

The exhausting ping-pong was interrupted when Price got COVID-19 in the summer of 2022. Nothing asymptomatic, either — 102-degree fever for over a week, 13 pounds lost in three days. Lambert was almost certain he needed to take her to the hospital.

He didn't. Price slowly got better physically, but was mentally drained as she insisted they keep training for Worlds.

Lambert gave her an ultimatum: throw 70 meters or more and they could go.

The mock meet, a planned simulation to prepare Price, was one of the good days. She spoke to Lambert after her throws, excited, hopeful. They checked how far she actually threw.

67 meters.

"He looked at me and said, 'we have to have a discussion,'" she said.

"I'm always the person that is like, we can do it, let's push through, let's have a bad-ass story," Lambert said. "And we've done that a bunch.

"(It was) the one time where it's like, 'let's take a step back. Because what's gonna happen even if you get better and you go there and you don't make it out of the qualifying round? What's really the point of that? That's not going to be good mentally."

They shut it down. There would be no second guessing as they watched qualifying in Eugene, Oregon from their home in Carbondale, Illinois.

"It broke my heart," she said.

The two decided to hit reset, taking a full month off to recuperate physically and mentally. Price and Lambert took their first vacation "like, ever" down to St. Augustine, Florida.

Somewhere in that period, Lambert got a call from Petros Kyprianou, the then-new track and field coach at the University of Illinois. Kyprianou said the throws coaching position was his if he wanted it.

The two still love Southern Illinois University, where they met in 2010. Fell in love in 2012. Where she won two NCAA titles in the hammer throws and Lambert got his first coaching gig, learning how to work with Price along the way.

"You know what to say and you know what not to say," Lambert said. "What buttons to push and what buttons not to push."

Where they bought a home in 2018, the one Price would leave for seven-hour round trips to Bloomington, Indiana once a week for physical treatment.

"It just got to the point where it was stale," Lambert said, "and I hate to say it that way."

Lambert accepted. The change of scenery benefited him and Price's career, the latter finding more resources to support her and a volunteer coaching role as she worked to get back to days like Friday.

Days where she could laugh, cry and hug.

"They were like, 'we're so proud you're coming back,'" Price said of her competitors. "After my third run, my eyes were tearing up ... they were just so sweet hugging me and I was so proud of them."

And Lambert? He's happy to see Price be, well, Price.

"Records are always meant to be broken. Would it be cool to break the world record?" he said. "Yeah, sure. But it was all about competing and getting after it and doing the best you can. Luckily, that came with two world records."

He ran his hands through his hair and smiled.

"It was just nice to compete and see her be herself again."

(US Indoor Championship results here, schedule here, tickets here)