Bolton gears up for the World Para Athletics

Charlotte Bolton, who competed in The Jerome Classic, will be competing in F41 shot put and discus at the World Para Athletics Championships, Sept. 27 to Oct. 5, in New Delhi, India. (Submitted Photo).

Chris Abbott

Grant Haven Media

Charlotte Bolton will be seeking shot put and discus personal bests at the end of the month in New Delhi, India.

The Tillsonburg-raised athlete will be throwing at the World Para Athletics Championships, Sept. 27 to Oct. 5 in Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, a 60,000-capacity venue.

It’s been a busy competition summer for Bolton - her social media pages (Instagram & Facebook) include photos from competitions in Montreal, Vancouver, Edmonton, France and Switzerland.

She recently returned from the Canadian Track and Field Championships in Ottawa with first in the para division shot put, just two centimeters from her ‘PB,’ and second in disc under the Raza point system with a season best (lifetime third best), edged by a three-time Paralympian.

“I was so close to my shot put PB… irritatingly close,” said Bolton, “but overall pretty pleased with that. I really can’t complain. It was more consistency in those higher numbers, which is always good.”

Soon after she received a ‘congratulations’ call, announcing she was one of 26 Canadian para athletes named to compete in F41 Para shot put and discus at the 2025 World Para Athletics Championships.

“That was really exciting. So now we’re in the middle of preparing for that in New Delhi, India. Probably the most extensive planning I’ve done for an athletics trip.”

Her first event is early, her second event late, with many days between filled with training, and some good distractions like playing cards and art.

“It’s going to be very different. It’s going to be really hot, really humid. The estimated temperature is to be ‘feels like 40 to 55 C’ and the only place with air conditioning is the hotel.”

Team Canada athletes will be heading to UAE before the World Para Athletics Championships, giving them about a week to acclimatize, training in a similarly hot environment.

“Hopefully all the prep that we do will mean that it doesn’t have a significant impact, and that we won’t feel more uncomfortable in the heat than people who live there. We try to do everything we can to mitigate that.”

There are other factors involved.

“It’s going to be loud,” she said. “A lot of people. You can’t drink (or brush your teeth) with the tap water. And the food is different. The last thing you want on a sports trip is a stomach problem, so we’re going to be eating at the hotel – the team can be assured of the quality of the food production. We’re discouraged from trying street foods. They want everyone to be careful and not trying new things.

“We’re athletes and we want to be at peak performance. Even mildly ill is unacceptable. We have to control all the controllables so you don’t look back and say, ‘Oh, maybe I should have been more careful or I should have gone the extra mile.’ Maybe it does feel a little excessive – all the probiotics, the electrolytes, the ice vests, and just a bunch of stuff to bring with us - but you don’t want to get there and say, ‘I could have prevented something.’”

Training at a facility at York University involves ‘blocks’ which change as the competition approaches.

“We do a tapering – we don’t really train less, we train lighter. Right now I’m in a heavy phase, we’ll do lots of reps with a heavy weight. You increase the weight over a certain period, then you decrease the weight and reps so you built up your strength, but now you’re working on your speed and explosiveness.

“You want to be doing certain things at certain times, so that you are at your best at the correct time. Athletics is an interesting sport because there are so many different disciplines – sprinters do completely different styles of tapering and exercise than the throwers do because we’re working toward a different thing, a different sort of power.

“My coach (Richard Parkinson) likes to quote physics at us. Acceleration and mass and force and distance. I won’t pretend to remember what the actual formula is, but we work a lot on speed because your speed increases how far it’s going to go.”

Some people rely more on mass than speed, she said, knowing she is built more on the leaner side.

“So we work a lot on that speed and explosiveness to get that ratio of mass to velocity. I probably have more velocity than mass.

“I just really follow what my coach puts on the program,” she laughed.

***

Bolton made her Paralympic debut at the Tokyo 2020 Games (in 2021), sixth in both shot put and discus. She finished Top 10 at the 2023 World Para Athletics Championships in France, in discus and shot put, then won a bronze medal at the Santiago 2023 Para Pan American Games in Chile.

At her second Paralympics in Paris, France in 2024, she placed 10th in the women’s shot put F41 finals at Stade de France, and she was sixth in discus.

“I wouldn’t say I have expectations in how I want to rank (in India), I would say what I want is to feel prepared and to have those throws that I have been doing. Because it’s really a steep learning curve to go from ‘not as high in the rankings’ to being possibly considered ‘someone to watch out for.’ If I’m thinking about it too much, I find that I end up thinking more about how I’m going to do instead of how I’m going to do it.”

chris@granthaven.com