Associated PressCal Poly graduate Stephanie Brown Trafton won the gold medal in the women’s discus Monday night at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing.
She became the first gold medalist from Cal Poly after posting a mark of 212 feet, 5 inches.
“Someone told me that I was coming to the Bird’s Nest to lay a golden egg,” she told reporters. “That’s what I tried to do.”
Brown Trafton’s gold, her first in international competition, gave the United States its first gold medal in the event since 1932. It hadn’t even medaled in the women’s discus since Leslie Deniz won a silver in 1984.
“I’m just so thrilled that mine was gold and I got to represent my country,” Brown Trafton said. “Every Olympics, anything can happen.”
Yarelys Barrios of Cuba took the silver at 208-9, and Olena Antonova of Ukraine the bronze at 205-4.
Brown Trafton, a 2004 graduate in engineering, completed her gold standard with her first throw and waited through 47 tosses by 11 others before she could relax.
“All through college, and even when I was coming up, my first throw has always seemed to be my best throw,” said Brown Trafton, a three-time All-American at Cal Poly. “That was definitely the strategy here tonight. No one else stepped up and I was able to pull off the upset.”
It was indeed an upset. The 28-year-old Arroyo Grande native entered as the 16th seed, but had the No. 1 throw in Friday’s qualifying round, at 205-11 ¬.
At the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, she failed to advance to the final round by finishing 11th in the first of two prelims groups, at 192-1.
Brown Trafton is the third Cal Poly graduate to medal in Olympic competition, following Gina Miles and Karen Kraft. Miles won a silver in equestrian eventing last week, and Kraft won a silver in pairs rowing in 1996 before collecting a bronze in the same event in 2000.
Other Cal Poly alumni competing in Beijing are Sharon Day (for the U.S. in the women’s high jump, beginning Thursday) and Jimmy Van Ostrand (as a first baseman and outfielder in baseball for Canada, which is 1-4 and concludes preliminary-round play by taking on the Netherlands on Tuesday and Chinese Taipei on Wednesday).
Cal Poly senior Mark Barr will swim for the U.S. at the Paralympic Games, which begin Sept. 6, also in Beijing.