For most athletes, a 19.91m throw when your opponent sets a meet record wouldn’t be the worst result in the world. But that’s not what Chase Jackson expects from herself. Not as a 10-time US champion who knows well what her best looks like. Because right now, the gap between training and competition is eating her alive.

A silver medal at Stockholm should feel like a victory. For a champion of her calibre, it feels like anything but. Jackson is not really sure what is keeping her from putting her best foot forward in competitions, especially after throwing a season-best result four days before the Stockholm DL meet.

“I’m pretty upset and really disappointed to be honest, I’ve been throwing much further in training all year, really, but it’s just not clicking right for me at the moment for one reason or another,” Jackson said after the meet.

“The body isn’t responding well at all to the different time zones; it’s killing me right now. I threw a season’s best in Turku the other day, and now, I’ll refocus on Oslo next week. I really hope I can hit it right over there, I need to.”

What makes her performance in Stockholm even more shocking is that she failed to come even close to the 20m mark. Her 19.91m was the closest of her three legal throws, while her other three throws were all invalid attempts. It marks her second consecutive loss in both the DL and to Dutch shot-putter Jessica Schilder.

To make things even worse, Jackson’s performance in Stockholm almost replicated her performance in the Shanghai DL. There, she started with a 19.97 throw but failed to cross the 20m mark until her fifth, when she hit 20.46. That happened to be her season best throw at the time and her best throw since she hit 20.90 at the Bruxelles DL meet in August 2025.

It’s a long time for a shot-putter to be that off their game. However, the moment she stepped out of the DL, the Olympian did well. That took place at the Paavo Nurmi Games in Turku, where Chase Jackson beat Jessica Schilder in a rather impressive performance. She opened with 20.19m (well beyond her DL performances), and that basically set the tone for the remainder of the contest.

By the third round, Jackson had hit 20.66m to break her season best, while the Dutch athlete struggled, throwing a best of 20.18m. What makes things rather interesting is the fact that the American managed that four days before the Stockholm DL. It does mean that Jackson may need to figure out what is going wrong this season.

After all, it’s the year that Jackson finally broke her World Indoor Championships gold medal duck; she will be hoping to add to that. That’s especially true, as the World Indoor Championships gold felt like the beginning of something, not the peak.

Chase Jackson reflects on ending her world indoors gold drought

Ever since her 2022 performance in Belgarde, Chase Jackson has been desperately chasing after gold at the World Indoors Championships. Unfortunately, it has evaded her just as desperately. That’s even if her 2022 performance put the world on notice as she hit 20.21m for silver. However, 2024 arrived, and Jackson was well off her best, even if she won the USA Indoors Championships.

The American fell well short of her usual mark at the event and so did Jessica Schilder. Instead, Sarah Mitton stepped up and threw a 20.22m for the gold. Yemisi Ogunleye finished second (20.19m) and Jackson came a distant third (19.67m). At the 2025 World Indoors, the 31-year-old improved on her 2024 mark but watched as Mitton and Schilder finished first and second.

However, there was something in the air about the 2026 edition. Many expected Valerie Adams’ 20.67m meeting record to be broken, given the quality on show. That didn’t end up happening as Jackson’s 20.14m throw was the only one beyond the 20.00m mark. It was well beyond her conservative opening throw of 18.35 but she eventually hit the gold medal mark.

“I wanted to come here and finish the collection of having the full set of world indoor medals,” Jackson told World Athletics in March 2026

“I am not a big fan of indoors, everybody knows that. This is my indoor retirement; I probably won’t throw indoors anymore. Today, it was hard for me to be ready. It was 15 athletes competing and it takes a long time to throw. My coach and me, we had a plan… and it worked.”

Now three months on and Jackson is struggling yet again. The 31-year-old prefers the outdoor season to the indoor season, as evidenced by her being the 2022 and 2023 world outdoor champion. Not just that, the fact that she has over a dozen Diamond League gold medals only adds to that.

That is exactly why the current slump is proving so frustrating for Jackson. The throws are there in training and they have even surfaced in flashes this season. Only time will tell whether she finds a way to consistently bring them into the Diamond League arena.