Shot Put▶Play

The needle swings from 15° up to 65° and back, at 50° per second in round 1 and 4 % faster every round. The green band on the gauge runs from 38° to 46°, and the best angle is about 42°: a 30° put loses roughly 7 % of its distance and a 20° put about 21 %.

The three steps speed up. After the angle tap the gaps are T, then 0.8 T, then 0.64 T, where T is picked at random between 0.58 and 0.72 seconds for each put and shrinks by 3 % every round. A tap within 0.13 seconds of a beat counts: dead on the beat is PERFECT and the credit falls away toward the edges of that window. Tapping more than 0.13 seconds early is a stumble, and a beat you let pass is missed; both give nothing for that step. Your body speed when you plant is 0.9 m/s plus 0.6 m/s per perfect step, so three perfect steps reach 2.7 m/s.

After the third step your front foot lands 1.10 m into the 2.135 m circle and slides on toward the board, slowing by 1.5 m/s every second. Tap to put. The later you put, the further you have pushed — but after the release you keep sliding until your reverse step brakes you at 7.5 m/s². The ghost foot shows where you would stop if you put right now; once it is past the board, putting is a foul. If you never put, either your foot reaches the board (a foul) or you come to a standstill and the shot leaves 2.0 m/s slower.

The shot leaves from 2.15 m high at 8.4 m/s, plus 1.3 m/s for each perfect step, plus up to 2.2 m/s for a full push, and the distance is measured from the inside edge of the board. Each round you have 3 puts to reach the qualifying mark: 11 m in round 1, then 1 m more every round. Your first put that reaches it clears the round and is added to your total; if all three fall short, the best of them is added and the meet is over. Fouls count 0.

Your score is the number of rounds cleared, and between equal rounds the total of your counted marks to the centimetre decides. The longest put the rules allow is 21.29 m, so round 11 (21 m) is the last mark anyone can reach and every meet ends by round 12.

Tips & strategy

A faster glide is always worth having, but it shortens the moment you get to push. With three perfect steps you plant at 2.7 m/s and the last safe instant to put comes only 0.28 seconds later; at 2.1 m/s you have 0.55 seconds. Putting the moment you plant after a perfect glide reaches only about 16.7 m, while waiting to the very edge of that window reaches 21.3 m — the last quarter second is worth more than four metres. Watch the ghost foot rather than your own foot: it runs ahead toward the board and turns red the instant you have waited too long.

The glide steps are not a steady beat. Each gap is 80 % of the one before, so if you tap at the rhythm of the first two you will be late on the third. Count it like a drum fill that tightens — "one … two . three" — and let the shrinking rings, not the clock, tell you when. A missed step costs a whole 0.6 m/s of body speed and 1.3 m/s of release speed, so a slightly off-centre tap is always better than no tap.

For the angle, aim for the middle of the green band. The needle moves at a constant speed and bounces at 15° and 65°, so pick one direction — say, on the way up — and tap as it crosses 42°. Missing the band by a few degrees costs far less than a mistimed step: 38° or 46° gives up less than 20 cm, but 30° throws away about 7 %.

Plan the meet around the marks. Rounds 1 to 4 (11–14 m) need only a couple of decent steps, so spend them learning where the ghost foot turns red. By round 8 (18 m) you need roughly one and a half perfect steps' worth and a deep push; round 10 (20 m) asks for about 2.3 out of 3 plus a push to the edge, and round 11 (21 m) leaves almost no margin. Remember that only the put that clears a round is added to your total, so on the late rounds treat every attempt as all-or-nothing: a cautious early release will not reach the mark anyway.