How they train: Amelia Strickler – AW

We speak to the two-time British shot put champion about making plans for Paris

It’s a complex puzzle of multiple component parts, but Amelia Strickler is focused on the big picture. “This year, it’s like: ‘What will get me to the Olympics?’” she says. “I’m not sitting home again. I won’t.”

Having missed out on selection for Tokyo, the two-time British shot put champion is more motivated than ever to represent Team GB at Paris 2024.

Her standards are high. She achieved her goal of competing at all four major championships in 2022 – the World Athletics Indoor Championships, World Athletics Championships, Commonwealth Games and European Championships – but was disappointed not to perform better.

“It was a lot, I fully admit it,” she says. “I was disappointed because I got injured just before the British Champs and it weighs on you. It was making the best of a tough situation. I still did okay. I wanted all four, I got all four. It was a big thing to tick off my achievements. It was my first world indoors, first world outdoors, so overall it wasn’t a bad year, but it wasn’t the best year ever.”

The 29-year-old Thames Valley athlete, who is coached remotely by Doha-based Zane Duquemin, has made steady progress since her home gym pandemic days of 2020. She threw over 18m for the first time in 2021, coincidentally the day after her Olympic selection appeal was rejected, and in June 2022 recorded a lifetime best of 18.18m. She has made changes since the end of last season – most notably reducing her body weight and altering her technique – and, after an illness-hit indoor campaign, 2023 is about consolidation.

“Training has been going a lot better in terms of general fitness and explosiveness, which has been really good,” she says. “The lighter body weight has helped overall. Lower limb injuries seem to be the bane of my existence and it’s helped being a little bit leaner. I feel lighter on my feet for sure, I think I can tell a difference movement-wise, so I definitely think it was a smart decision.

“I opened up my outdoor season in Botswana [the Botswana Golden Grand Prix on April 29] with a static start, so I don’t do a wind-up, then I do a full rotation as I’d normally do. It takes a bit more to get going with that because you’re starting from a stationary position. I felt like I was just making silly mistakes with the rotational start, so we’ve made big changes with regards to that.”

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Over the past six months – and following an interview with The Telegraph in January – Strickler has also become a respected spokesperson for protecting women’s sport, balancing her training with appearances on high profile talk shows such as Piers Morgan Uncensored, in addition to Fox News, GB News and BBC Radio 4.

“It was definitely a new experience for me,” she admits. “I did the initial interview [with The Telegraph] thinking I’d just get slated and that it would blow over eventually, and it just blew up. I was like: ‘Holy s**t, what’s going on?’

“It took a lot of time management for sure, but I can’t believe how much support I’ve had… I’ve had so many messages saying thank you from parents and their daughters. With Fox News I had to stay up to 2am because it was on in the US, so that was definitely a bit rough, but it was worth it because I knew that I was doing something that was meaningful. I definitely have no regrets.”

With World Athletics announcing in March that it would “exclude male-to-female transgender athletes who have been through male puberty from female World Rankings competition from March 31 2023”, Strickler has allowed herself to take a backseat while she focuses her efforts on reaching Paris, but she’s not willing to give it up completely.

“I’m not affected now, but I know it’s still going on,” she says. “I still want to support the movement because there are so many sports that are still letting women down.”

She won her first outdoor competition of the year with a season’s best of 17.25m at the Loughborough International on May 21. It’s work in progress, another piece in the complex Paris puzzle. (Since this interview she has improved her season’s best to 17.52m and finished runner-up in the UK Champs with 16.83m). “If I don’t end up in Budapest, yeah I’ll be sad,” she says; “but I’ll be sadder if I’m not on the plane next year.”

Amelia Strickler (National Athletics League)

Typical training week

Strickler’s training week starts on a Sunday. To support her throwing programme, she does a full body stretch every evening and uses compression recovery boots to alleviate fatigue.

• Sunday: throw, lift and plyometrics. Throwing sessions usually start with standing throws before moving to half throws, drills and full throws, with work on reverse and non-reverse.
• Monday: lift day such as cleans (“The fun stuff,” says Strickler).
• Tuesday: throwing and explosive work. Explosive work includes jumping, sprints and medicine ball throwing (with jumps).
• Wednesday: lift day.
• Thursday: throwing and explosive work.
• Friday: throwing and lifts.
• Saturday: rest day. “I usually do some cardio because I don’t really do well with rest,” says Strickler. “I like to walk at a fast pace on the treadmill, get the legs moving and get the blood pumping. The more lethargic I am, throwing becomes more difficult. The idea is to make the Sunday, the start of my training week, the best it can be.”

Favourite session? “I love throwing, but I also really love the Olympic lifts,” she says.

Least favourite session? “I don’t love med ball,” she says. “When your fingers hurt enough from throwing, it’s like: ‘I don’t need to hurt them again.’”

» This feature first appeared in the June issue of AW magazine, which you can read here