History Awaits Seated Throwers Phonsavanh And Grauer At Drake Relays

Drake University track coach John Griffith hosted the first Drake Relays in 1910 with the intention of getting his athletes interested in training earlier in the season.

In the more than 100 years since its inception, the meet has continued to expand to include high schoolers and professional track athletes. Then, in 2015, Para athletes competed at the Relays for the first time.

Now nine years later, Team USA standouts Justin Phongsavanh and Beth Grauer will make more history at Drake Stadium as they’ll become the first seated throwers to take part in the Drake Relays, which runs April 24-27 in Des Moines, Iowa.

Phongsavanh, a Paralympic bronze medalist and the men’s javelin F54 world-record holder, and Grauer, a 2023 Parapan American Games silver medalist in the women’s shot put F32/33/34, will headline the “Thursday Night Throwdown.”

“It’s an honor to be able to compete at any competitions where they are including adaptive sport with able-bodied sport,” Phongsavanh said. “It shows how much our sport has come along to finally getting Paralympic sport and visibility for it in major mainstream track and field competitions. I’m happy to be the pioneer and front runner for this first year.”

Phongsavanh grew up in Des Moines and attended Ankeny Centennial High School, which is 17 miles north from the field he’ll be competing at this weekend. He was a four-sport athlete in high school, but in 2015 a stranger shot him in a fast-food parking lot, which resulted in Phongsavanh being paralyzed below the waist. After undergoing physical therapy, he found Adaptive Sports Iowa. Since then, he’s traveled the world competing, all while juggling his side hustles as the owner of a photo booth company and being a consultant and an entrepreneur.

Now residing in Georgia, the 26-year-old couldn’t be happier to return to Iowa and compete for the first time at a venue that has so much meaning to him as a spectator.

“When you see track and field in Iowa in high school, it’s always the goal to go to the Drake Relays,” Phongsavanh said. “The Blue Oval is famous. It’s Midwest hospitality mixed with elite competition. We’re cornfed in Iowa and it shows in our performances.

“I told everyone to tell everyone that I’m coming back to compete, and this is the first time they’ll ever see me in-person compete at a track and field event. I might have moved to Georgia, but I’ll always be an Iowa boy.”

Phongsavanh is coached by Erica Wheeler, who competed in javelin at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta for Team USA. She helped Phongsavanh set the men’s javelin F54 world record with a mark of 33.29 meters in 2021. He then won bronze in the event at the Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020, and most recently won the event at last month’s Para track and field national championships.

He hopes returning home to Iowa for the Drake Relays will give him the inspiration he’ll need over the next four months for the World Para Athletics Championships, U.S. Paralympic Team Trials – Track and Field and possibly the Paralympic Games Paris 2024.  

“When you’re a young whippersnapper, you’re just happy to have the ability to get onto that Paralympic stage,” he said. “Now that I’m seasoned and have competed in more competitions around the country and world, just showing up is not good enough for me this time around. This time the expectation is a medal — a better medal than what I got last time.”

For Grauer, who trains year-round in Florida, the Drake Relays’ purpose is twofold — hit her best marks and grow awareness for the sport.

“Like every event, I want to PR for sure,” Grauer said, “and I want to showcase my talent and bring awareness to seated throwing. Maybe I’ll inspire someone who is watching.”

Grauer, 40, is a retired U.S. Marine who began competing in the seated shot put in 2022 after PTSD and traumatic brain injuries affected her balance and ability to compete as a standing athlete.

Since making the switch, she’s competed in the Invictus Games and International Wheelchair and Amputee Sports World Games, and won silver at the 2023 Parapan American Games. Grauer credits the “hurry up and wait” mentality and the patience she learned in the Marines for her quick success.

Grauer also hopes the Drake Relays are the start of her path to Paris this year.

“I just got goosebumps,” is all she could muster when asked about the possibility of competing at the Paralympics. “It would mean the world to me to be able to represent my country in a different aspect.”

Stuart Lieberman covered Paralympic sports for three years at the International Paralympic Committee, including at the London 2012 and Sochi 2014 Games. He is a freelance contributor to usparatf.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.