Sarah Mitton

Sarah Dawn Mitton (born 20 June 1996) is a Canadian athlete specializing in the shot put. She is the 2023 World silver medallist and a two-time World Indoor champion (2024, 2025). The first Canadian woman to medal in the shot put at either World Athletics global championship, she is also the 2023 Pan American, 2022 Commonwealth, and 2019 Summer Universiade champion.

Mitton represented Canada at the 2020 and 2024 Summer Olympics, and holds both the indoor and outdoor national records in women's shot put.

Career Youth and university (2013–19) Mitton was born in Liverpool, Nova Scotia and raised in Brooklyn. A student athlete, she began throwing while in junior high school, but also participated in other events, and made the Nova Scotian heptathlon team in 2013. After graduating from Liverpool High School in 2014, she was accepted to the University of Windsor on an athletic scholarship. International assignments eluded Mitton in the early years of her career, narrowly missing qualification for both the 2013 World Youth Championships and the 2014 World Junior Championships. In 2015 she won the Canadian junior title in shot put, which led to her first international assignment, the Pan American Junior Championships. Internationally, she competed at two Summer Universiades, finishing tenth in her first appearance in 2017 before taking gold in the shot put at the 2019 Summer Universiade in Naples. The latter was the first time she had competed in a shot put event with qualification and finals on the same day, something she simulated extensively in advance, which she later said gave her a considerable advantage over her competitors. Mitton described it as "overwhelming" that her first international medal was a gold medal.

After graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree, Mitton delayed plans to pursue further studies in marine biology to continue her athletics career, relocating to Toronto and for a time residing with fellow Canadian shot putter Brittany Crew. Following her Universiade victory, she made two other major international appearances in 2019, finishing sixth at the 2019 Pan American Games in Lima, and then making her World Championship debut at the 2019 edition in Doha. Mitton placed twenty-fourth in the qualification round, and did not advance to the event final.

Continuing to make major strides in 2022, Mitton began by breaking the Canadian indoor record at an invitational challenge in New York with a throw of 19.16 m. She then was seventh in her World Indoor Championships debut. In May, she broke Crew's Canadian outdoor record with a throw of 19.58 m. She placed sixth at the Bislett Games. She then broke the national record again in June with a 20.33 m throw at the Canadian Track and Field Championships. This stood as the best throw in the world to that point in the year. Her second Diamond League appearance, at the BAUHAUS-galan in Stockholm, saw her win the silver medal with a 19.90 m throw. A month later she was part of her first Commonwealth Games team, for the 2022 edition in Birmingham. In third place in the shot put final after five throws, with her final attempt she registered at 19.03 m, 0.05 ahead of defending champion Danniel Thomas-Dodd of Jamaica. Thomas-Dodd failed to regain her place with her own final attempt, earning Mitton the gold medal. She said afterward that "the goal from the beginning was to go out and win it, and we achieved it, though not the way we expected. The competition started out really rough and I started doubting myself mid-competition and pulled myself back... you just have to believe in yourself." At the 2022 NACAC Championships in Freeport, Mitton won the gold medal with a 20.15 metre throw, her second over twenty metres of the year. She then concluded the season in the Diamond League Final in Zürich, winning the silver medal.

World silver and World Indoor gold, Paris Olympics (2023–24) Competing at the Can/Am Classic on January 13, 2023, Mitton raised her Canadian indoor record to 19.80 m. Mitton finished first overall on the 2023 World Athletics Indoor Tour, including a victory at the Villa de Madrid Indoor Meeting over reigning World champion Chase Ealey, finishing second at all other events. By the end of the indoor season, she had developed bone chips in her right elbow, which she contemplated surgical options for, but did not want to pursue in advance of the upcoming Summer Olympics. Instead, she sought to control it with time off and technique alterations. Mitton had an underwhelming result at the Meeting de Paris as well, before rebounding to win the Bislett Games in her second appearance in Oslo. This was her first Diamond League victory. After several consecutive throwing events under 19 metres she had reverted to her standard rotational technique. At the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Mitton qualified to the final in fifth place, and then placed second overall with her fifth throw of 20.08 metres, a season's best. Her silver medal, which she called "a fantastic upgrade from last year," was the first for a Canadian woman in the shot put, and one of three medals won by Canadian athletes in the throwing events in Budapest.

Mitton reached the Diamond League Final for the second consecutive season, taking her second silver medal after finishing behind Ealey. To conclude the year, she was part of the Canadian team for the 2023 Pan American Games in Santiago, where she won gold in the shot put.

Beginning the Olympic season, Mitton was named co-captain of the Canadian delegation to the 2024 World Athletics Indoor Championships alongside Alysha Newman. She won the gold medal with a distance of 20.22 m, a new national indoor record. Mitton described being a world champion as "the moment that cannot be taken away from you." Two months later, she set a new national outdoor record with a 20.68 metre throw at a May event in Fleetwood, Pennsylvania. Named to the Canadian team for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, Mitton finished first in qualifying for the Olympic shot put, managing a 19.77 m distance on her first attempt. She was the first Canadian woman to reach the Olympic shot put final since 1964. As the defending World champion unexpectedly failed to qualify, Mitton was perceived as the gold medal favourite going into the final, but struggled and finished twelfth of the twelve competitors. Following the disappointment at the Olympics, Mitton resumed competing on the 2024 Diamond League circuit, earning medals that she would describe as "critical to my mental well-being. The best thing is to get back in the circle, do what you know and what you train for." Mitton concluded the season with victory at the Diamond League Final in Brussels, winning with a distance of 20.25 m. She was the first Canadian woman to win a Diamond League title in a field event, and the fourth Canadian to win in any discipline.

Second World Indoor title (2025–present) Participating in the 2025 World Athletics Indoor Tour, Mitton won gold at the Indoor Meeting Karlsruhe on February 7, setting a new national indoor record of 20.68 m. This was the world's best indoor throw since 2013. At the 2025 World Athletics Indoor Championships in Nanjing, she successfully defended her gold medal from the prior year. Her throw of 20.48 m was the third-longest of her competitive career, and her second and fourth attempts (20.36 and 20.15 metres, respectively) would also have been sufficient to win. The event was the first time since 1991 that all three medalists had thrown a distance of over 20 metres. Mitton said "that makes it better — when you win when everyone's on top of their game."

Mitton initially appeared to have successfully defended her title at the 2025 Diamond League Final, but her erstwhile winning throw of 20.67 m was ruled invalid upon challenge by a competitor, and she dropped to third place based on her best remaining valid throw of 19.99 m. She finished the season at the 2025 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo. She led in the shot put event after the opening round of throws, and held the silver medal position through the bulk of the competition, but was bumped off the podium in the final round, finishing fourth.

Entering the 2026 World Athletics Indoor Championships in Toruń as the two-time and defending champion, Mitton won the silver medal, her best throw covering 19.78 m.

International competitions