On a humid September evening in Tokyo, Valarie Allman strutted into the discus circle for her first throw of the World Championships final. “It’s pretty special,” she told The Athletic the following day from the first floor of ASICS house in Tokyo. Allman, a seven-time all American who went to Stanford, only started throwing discus at age 15. That was my first love and I never expected that there would be such a parallel between dance and discus,” she said. The only round thing Allman was interested in was the Japanese cuisine during her post-World Championships holiday in the country.