By Dan Plouffe
At the time, Tim Nedow’s top throw in the men’s shotput competition would have left him in the uncomfortable 4th-place position. But just as Canadian steeplechasers were called up to collect their gold and silver medals just a few steps away, the Ottawa Lions athlete unleashed his best effort of the day to vault into podium position himself, finishing 2nd to only O’Dayne Richards of Jamaica, the new Pan Am Games record holder.
“I came here to get a medal, and I’m happy to do it,” notes Nedow, who was especially pleased to win his prize in front of a big gathering of extended family, friends and past coaches. “They haven’t seen me compete probably since high school, so it’s a really cool event for them to come and see me at this level.”
While Toronto 2015 took place fairly close to the place he honed his skills as a teenager in Ottawa – and even closer to his hometown of Brockville – it’s a long way from his current residence. The 24-year-old elected to setup camp in Sweden recently to train under a renowned coach there. He’s picking up a word or two of Swedish.
“When they say one word at a time, I can pick up on it,” smiles the 6’ 6”, 290-lb. gentle giant. “And when my coach gets fired up, he doesn’t actually realize he’s speaking Swedish to me.
“He says ‘bra’ a lot, which means ‘good’, so that’s the word I picked up on. And ‘nay’ is ‘no’, and ‘ta’ is ‘thank you’ – as a Canadian, I’m glad I know ‘ta’ because I say it a lot.”
Living overseas isn’t the easiest proposition – although Nedow says he’s definitely enjoying it – but he believes it offers him the best shot at success, and his consistent world-class performances above 20 metres this season suggest it’s working.
“The thing with this sport is I’m going all in. I’m not going to half-ass it,” explains the Glasgow 2014 bronze medallist. “I just thought this is the coach for me, I don’t have much in my life to put on hold – I don’t have family or kids, I just graduated from school, so you know what? I’m going to do this into Rio and depending on how it goes, I may continue to do it.
“I think I’m on the right pace and in the right hands. I’m looking forward to these next couple years.”
Nedow has full confidence that he’s on the cusp of being able to carve out a nice, long career in track-and-field. The Aug. 22-30 IAAF World Championships in Beijing are next up, and a repeat of his 20.53 m effort in Toronto would likely allow Nedow to meet his top-8 objective.
“I think a (personal-best) is right around the corner, like 21 (metres), and if I can do that at worlds, I’m going to be pretty pumped,” he signals.
The Pan Am Games also hinted that Nedow may have promising prospects as a discus thrower in the future. The DePaul University grad has focused exclusively on shotput for the past three years, but tried it at the Canadian Championships and wound up entering the event at the Pan Am Games. With just three discus practices under his belt since then, Nedow wound up placing 6th with a 61.49 m toss that was 1.15 m away from the podium.
“You know, I was not too far behind the top guys,” notes Nedow, whose coach is a specialist in discus and tells him he has the build to excel in the discipline. “It’s something to consider down the road.”
There are certainly bright prospects for Nedow’s future path, although it’s unlikely to again feature another major international competition a short highway drive away from his roots.
“I don’t think this will ever happen for me again, close to home and a meet this big,” underlines the Thousand Islands Secondary School grad. “It really is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I’m so happy to be a part of it, and I did really well, so I’m really happy right now.”