Joe Kovacs Wins Third Silver Medal in Shot Put at Paris Olympics

The former Penn State star finishes second to Ryan Crouser for the third consecutive Olympic Games.

Joe Kovacs of Team USA throws the shot put at the 2024 Paris Olympics. / Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

Joe Kovacs won his third consecutive Olympics silver medal in the shot put Saturday in typically dramatic form. The Penn State graduate and two-time world champion hit a throw of 22.15 meters on his final attempt to claim the silver behind Ryan Crouser, the three-time champion who has bettered Kovacs in three consecutive Olympics.

Still, the throw continued a marvelous career for Kovacs, who won his ninth international medal since 2015 and, at 35, solidified his place in shot-put history behind its most dominant performer. Crouser became the first athlete to win three Olympic shot put titles.

Kovacs was the second former Penn State athlete to win an individual medal Saturday at the Paris Olympics. Earlier, pommel horse specialist Stephen Nedoroscik won his second bronze medal of these games, this time in the men's individual competition.

Kovacs has medaled at nearly every major international competition since 2015, when he won his first gold medal at the World Championships. Kovacs won his second world title in 2019, when he defeated Crouser in what the shot-put community considers the event's greatest competition ever. Kovacs recorded a throw of 22.91 meters on his final attempt of the event, defeating Crouser and New Zealand's Tomas Walsh by one centimeter.

In a 2019 interview, Kovacs' wife Ashley, who also is his coach, said she expected something monumental from her husband's final attempt.

“I knew going into the last round that something was going to happen with him,” Ashley Kovacs said in the interview. “It wasn’t going to be a normal throw. It was either going to be a big throw or a big miss. The whole time, I felt like I was in this bubble watching him from the outside.”

Kovacs nearly quit throwing after a difficult 2018 season in which he didn't make the top 20 at the World Championships. Then he asked Ashley to marry him before asking her to become his coach. The two were married in November 2019, and Kovacs credited Ashley for reviving his career.

He has won six medals at the Olympics and World Championships since, and the two have twin daughters. They live in Dublin, Ohio, as Ashley Kovacs formerly coached at Ohio State (she spent the past two years at Vanderbilt).

"When I came here [to Ohio], I didn't have any intention of having Ashley coach me," Kovacs said in a 2021 interview. "Now, having my wife as my coach is a huge advantage."

Kovacs arrived at Penn State in 2008 after winning a Pennsylvania Class 2A state shot-put title, and setting the state record, at Bethlehem Catholic (current Penn State offensive lineman Jven Williams broke Kovacs' state record in 2022). Though he went to Penn State for track & field, Kovacs longed to play football. In fact, the Penn State coaching staff offered him a chance to walk-on as a fullback, the the track staff didn't like the idea. Kovacs ended up working at Beaver Stadium for one football season and won a Big Ten title in the shot put. In 2018, Kovacs' bachelor party was a huge tailgate at the Penn State-Ohio State game in State College.

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Penn State on SI is the place for Penn State news, opinion and perspective on the SI.com network. Publisher Mark Wogenrich has covered Penn State for more than 20 years, tracking three coaching staffs, three Big Ten titles and a catalog of great stories. Follow him on X (or Twitter) @MarkWogenrich.