TORONTO—Joseph Maxwell continues to set the bar for himself and other shotputters in the province of Ontario and Canada. This past weekend the Evansville native, who will not turn 18 years of age for a couple of months, set a Canadian indoor shot-put record for those under 20 years of age.
“I broke the Canadian indoor shotput record in the junior division (for those athletes under 20 years of age) at a York University (sanctioned) competition (last weekend), ” Mr. Maxwell told the Recorder Monday evening.
Mr. Maxwell is throwing a six kilogram shotput, and the previous Canadian junior division indoor record was 19.13 metres. The new record set by Mr. Maxwell is 19.22 metres.
“I’m only turning 18 this year so I will have another year in the junior division. It’s pretty nice to break a record like this in my first year,” said Mr. Maxwell. “The old record was 19.13 metres, so I was able to break it by a substantial amount. I knew I had a chance to break a record, but I was going to be happy with whatever mark I posted.”
“I had a really tough start in the competition, my first two attempts I was out of rhythm and I doubted if I could reach 19 metres. My third attempt didn’t come clean off my hands, so I was really surprised where it hit,” said Mr. Maxwell. “It went over 19 metres but it didn’t feel like it. I usually know if I’ve had a good throw, but with this one not so much.”
“My previous personal best was 18.24 metres, so the 19.22 mark is 98 centimetres above my previous personal best,” said Mr. Maxwell. “I haven’t really thrown that type of personal best mark in a long time. It is a big jump and makes me happy that all the hard work and training I’ve been doing is paying off.”
“I’m now done with the indoor competition part of my year,” said Mr. Maxwell. “This Friday, March 11 I’m going to be going to Florida for eight days as part of the Athletics Ontario Training Camp. And the coach I’m working with at York (University) is coming on the trip. Then I will be back home around March 20-21 and train for outdoor events.”
“At some point, probably late April or early May, I will take part in a competition to hopefully qualify for the world junior championships being held in July in Poland,” continued Mr. Maxwell.
