Alex Rose: Discus’s Samoan star

Last September, Alex Rose walked into a rain-soaked concrete circle at the Japan National Stadium and made athletics history. While many discus throwers struggled amid the downpour, Rose found a throw of 66.96 metres to win bronze at the World Athletics Championships – his first world-level medal, and a first-ever medal at the championships for the Pacific island of Samoa.

What made the feat even more remarkable is that Alex Rose isn’t a full-time athlete. He has to fit training around working and travelling as a sales engineer in his native Michigan – meaning he often has to train on his lunch breaks, or before or after work, trying to find facilities wherever he can.

In an in-depth interview, Alex Rose tells More than the Score’s Ade Adedoyin about his long road to making history for Samoa, explaining how a word of advice from a high-school teacher led him to the discus in the first place, and why he decided to compete for his father’s native land rather than the US. He shares the mindset shifts that have seen him consistently improve through his career, and why what he saw on a recent visit to the Polynesian Championships in New Zealand gives him hope for the future of athletics in the Pacific. He also talks about the realities of raising two young sons while competing as a world-class athlete, and why his wife Samantha is his “rock”.

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