ASU's Jorinde van Klinken is Olympics-bound in discus after world's leading throws

Arizona State's Jorinde van Klinken competed unattached last week at two meets in Tucson, hoping for an Olympic qualifying mark in discus.

She needed a throw of 63.50 meters (208 feet-4 inches), not that far off her personal best and NCAA-leading 62.58 at the Pac-12 Outdoor Championships. 

Van Klinken accomplished that on May 20, throwing 65.94 (216 feet, 4 inches) at the Tucson Elite Classic. Then two days later at the USA Track Throws Festival, she stunned herself and the entire sport with a 2021 world-leading throw of 70.22 (230-4) that elevates the Dutch 21-year-old into Olympic medal contention.

"The distance is so surrealistic to me and it being the No. 1 mark in the world in the Olympic year," she said. "It's still quite early in the season so I'm guessing more women will throw far, and they'll probably do it with a little less wind. But it's crazy to be at the top of the world list, unbelievable. 

"My teammates have said you've just proven everything is possible. That's really true because no one including me and my family and everyone who's ever seen me throw would believe this would happen this year. It literally changes everything."

Van Klinken's immediate future, though, is the same.

Arizona State competes this week at the NCAA West preliminaries in College Station, Texas, a qualifier for the NCAA Outdoor Championships, June 9-12 in Eugene, Oregon. 

ASU's men are ranked No. 18 nationally and the women No. 23. Turner Washington, national leader in men's discus, competes Wednesday (shot put) and Friday (discus) and van Klinken on Thursday (shot put) and Saturday (discus).

Washington won the NCAA Indoor shot put title in March and van Klinken was third.

ASU's long history of producing elite throwers brought van Klinken to the U.S. after completing her undergraduate degree in her home Netherlands. 

"I started looking for a new coach," she said. "There's not that many in the world that qualify to really get you to world class in both events. I started looking in Germany and Scandinavia and I also wanted to pursue my master's degree."

Process of elimination narrowed her choices to ASU and Georgia, and she "liked it way better" in Tempe after her visits. She is a student in the Thunderbird School of Global Management with another year of athletic eligibility at ASU.

Working with ASU throws coach Brian Blutreich, van Klinken has become a rotational shot putter, improving enough to finish second at the Pac-12 meet. Combined with her discus win, she earned Pac-12 women's field Athlete of the Year. 

"He's been amazing," van Klinken said of Blutreich. "He's been working on my basics a lot especially in the shot. 

"In discus, he was feeling too bad about my technique before I came here so we've been working on details. The biggest thing he's been working on is the reverse (throw) for the past two or three weeks because I've always thrown with a non-reverse. It's very clear now that I throw a lot further with the reverse even though I'm not an expert in it yet."

Van Klinken also has a new lifting program that is paying off. "I started doing a lot less, which has made me way more explosive. I feel physically in the best shape of my life."

A gold medalist in shot put at the 2019 U20 European Championships, van Klinken then competed in discus at the 2019 World Championships (18th in qualifying). 

Now she has obliterated the Dutch discus record by more than 20 feet and eclipsed Leslie Deniz's ASU record, which stood since 1983.

ASU teammates Ria Stalman, also from the Netherlands, and Deniz won gold and silver medals in discus at the 1984 Olympics. Stalman admitted in 2016 that she was doping at the Los Angeles Olympics, but the violation was too old to prosecute and change the results. 

"I honestly didn't know she (Stalman) went to ASU until one of my first days of practice because I saw her picture on the wall," van Klinken said. "I knew vaguely that she went to the U.S. at some point, but I didn't know at all that she went to ASU. That's a big coincidence. I've never met her or talked to her."

But at the Tokyo Olympics this summer, van Klinken will get the chance to match Stalman but do it cleanly. And she's young enough to have more Olympic chances at Paris in 2024 and LA in 2028.

"Going to the Olympics and throwing 70 (feet) are two of my biggest goals," she said. "I've always said I wanted to medal in shot put and discus so that would be my next goal. But going for that in 2020 or 2021 was never on the schedule. I'm literally just going to enjoy these Olympics and try to throw as far as possible then for the next two Olympics try to medal in both. This experience is going to be super useful for that."

More:Building Team Arizona for Tokyo Olympics: Local connections in Summer Games

More:ASU's Turner Washington wins NCAA Indoor shot put title

More:NCAA record elevates Turner Washington in shot put, ASU track overall

Reach the reporter at jeff.metcalfe@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8053. Follow him on Twitter @jeffmetcalfe.

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