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Ria Stalman had only been on the fringes of world class as a discus
thrower, before she took advantage of the opportunity presented at the
1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles to capture the gold medal. Prior to
Los Angeles, Stalman's previous appearances at major internationals had
resulted in a 12th place finish at the 1982 European Championships, and
7th place at the 1983 World Championships in Helsinki. However, the
quality of the discus throw competition at Los Angeles was severely
depleted by the eastern-bloc boycott, which resulted in the
non-participation of not only the six athletes who had finished ahead of
Stalman at Helsinki, but also any other athlete from the countries
which they represented.
In addition to this fortuitous circumstance,
Ria had her best year in 1984, winning both the shot put and discus
throw at the USA national championships in June, and improving her
pre-1984 personal best in the discus by over 4 metres in July. During
the course of her education, Ria had attended Arizona State University,
and as circumstance would have it, her main rival at the Olympics in Los
Angeles would turn out to be former Arizona teammate Leslie Deniz
(USA). In the Olympic final on 11 August, Stalman assumed the early
lead with her first round throw of 64.50m. Ria failed to improve on
this effort in the next three rounds, although by the end of round four
she had produced the three best throws of the competition and seemed
headed for victory. However, Deniz produced a throw of 64.86m in round
five to snatch the lead. Stalman could only respond with 63.64m on her
fifth attempt, but in the last round, with her final throw in a major
international, she unleashed a 65.36m effort to win the gold medal (see photo above). (Ron Casey)
In early 2016, Stalman admitted in a TV interview that she had been
using doping when she won her 1984 gold medal. The results and
records remain, because the offense is too old to prosecute.
In July 1984 she achieved her best discus throw of 71.22 m. This
remained the Dutch record until November 2016, when the Royal Dutch
Athletics Federation annulled the record due to doping violations.
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