Valerie Adams

EVENT: Athletics - Shot Put Women

Dame Valerie Adams is one of New Zealand's most successful and celebrated Olympic athletes.

Adams competed at five Olympic Games from 2004-21, winning a staggering two golds, a silver and a bronze in the shot put. She was the second New Zealand woman, after Barbara Kendall, to compete at five Olympics.

In the Commonwealth Games, Adams was even more dominant, winning three gold and two silver medals from 2002-18.

Adams, born in Rotorua in 1984, was clearly a star in the making even as a teenager. She won world youth (2001) and junior (2002) titles and was only 17 when she finished second at her first Commonwealth Games, at Manchester in 2002.

Stepping up to the big-time at the Athens 2004 Olympic Games, she finished seventh in a competition held at the ancient site at Olympia, despite have had an appendectomy just weeks before the competition.

After that there was no stopping her – gold medals at the Beijing 2008 Olympics (making her the first New Zealand athlete to win an Olympic gold medal in 32 years) and at London in 2012 (after being promoted from second place when Belarusian Nadzeya Ostapchuk failed a drugs test). At the Commonwealth Games she won gold in Melbourne in 2006, Delhi in 2010 and Glasgow in 2014.

At 1.93m (6ft 4in) and about 120kg (13st), Adams was an imposing figure in competition. Even the world’s finest shot putters buckled before her technique, strength and temperament. She won four successive world outdoor titles from 2007-13 (after a silver medal at Helsinki in 2005) and four consecutive indoor titles as well, from 2008-14.

She suffered a rare reverse at the 2016 Olympics at Rio de Janeiro, where she led the shot put until the final round, but was then overtaken by American Michelle Carter and had to settle for silver.

Adam’s daughter Kimoana was born in 2017 and a son, Kapaleli, in 2023. Despite the demands of motherhood and increasing injury woes, Adam’s pushed through to win a Commonwealth Games silver medal in 2018 and an Olympic bronze medal when the delayed Tokyo Games were held in 2021. Her last world indoor championship medal was a bronze in 2015.

Adams’ biggest shot put effort was 21.24m in 2011. She stands only 24th all-time among women’s shot putters, but has strong claims to being the greatest ever. The 23 women above her on that list all recorded their best distances on or before 2000, when drug testing was less effective and doping far more prevalent. Of athletes who have competed since 2000, Adams stands clearly supreme. At one point she won 107 successive shot put competitions, and in 2014 she was named World Athletics Female Athlete of the Year.

At home she was untouchable, winning 17 national shot put titles between 2001 and 2021. She also won one national hammer throw title. She won the Halberg Sportswoman of the Year award for seven consecutive years from 2006, and the  Halberg Supreme Award three times. She was awarded the NZOC's Lonsdale Cup in 2006, 2007, 2011, 2013 and 2014.

She was made a Dame in 2017, making her the youngest Dame in New Zealand history. She had previously been made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit.

In 2022 Adams was appointed to the board of High Performance Sport New Zealand. She has served several terms on the World Athletics Athletes' Commission. In 2019 she was elected deputy chair of the Commission and in 2023 she became its chair. She has also chaired the Oceania Athletics Athletes' Commission.