As familiar as he is to injury setbacks, this one will sting Ryan Crouser a little more. In 2023, just days before the World Athletics Championships, he found that he had two blood clots in his left calf, which forced him to take blood thinners before heading overseas. Yet Crouser competed and captured a world title. Now, 3 years later, the 3x Olympic champion has faced another setback. This time, however, the injury has brought his 2026 season to an end.

On July 20, Crouser shared a video on Instagram announcing that he will miss the remainder of the track and field season due to an elbow injury that requires surgery.

“So it’s been a bit of a struggle these past few weeks, a couple of months, so unfortunately my season is done,” Crouser said in the video. “That kind of sucks to officially say that, but the elbow has to have surgery.”

The men’s shot put world record holder revealed that he fractured the tip of his olecranon, the bony point of the elbow. He said, “I snapped off the tip of my olecranon, and they have to go in and remove that.”

According to Crouser, the injury occurred in May, but he continued competing through the pain. For instance, he finished third at the Xiamen Diamond League with a throw of 22.17 meters, placed second in Rabat with 22.31 meters, and took third at the Prefontaine Classic after producing his season-best mark of 22.48 meters. But now, he has decided that surgery was the best long-term solution.

Crouser explored every non-surgical treatment possible before making the decision to undergo surgery. “Unfortunately, it’s kind of my only route at this point,” he said. “I’ve exhausted all of the soft tissue work as far as PT, massage, acupuncture, dry needling, all of those types of modalities, heat, cold, everything.”

He added that the broken bone fragment has continued to cause problems inside the joint. “When you have a bone floating around in your elbow, it wreaks a lot of havoc. So we’re going to take it out. It’s definitely the smarter move long term because I can’t really throw very well.” The surgery will remove the broken fragment and address additional issues inside the elbow.

But he hasn’t lost hope. He said, “I’ll be back in 2027 and especially in 2028. I’m not done yet, but this season has come to an end.”

But this is far from the first injury setback of Crouser’s career.

For more than a decade, Ryan Crouser always found a way back

Long before becoming a 3x Olympic champion, Crouser was already learning how to overcome adversity. While competing at the University of Texas from 2011 to 2016, he established himself as one of the best collegiate throwers in the country. In 2013, after missing the indoor season because of injury, he returned outdoors stronger than ever. He won his first NCAA outdoor shot put title and surpassed the 21-meter barrier for the first time.

Three years later, after earning his master’s degree, he turned pro and broke onto the grandest of stages. Crouser won gold at the 2016 Rio Olympics with an Olympic record 22.52m. He also added to his trophy count in Diamond League events around the world and took up the silver in the World Championship in 2019 before having one of the best seasons in the sport’s history in 2021.

However, downfalls were never out of the question, even in the height of his success. Crouser had a nerve entrapment in his throwing elbow just prior to the Paris Olympics, and also tore a pectoral muscle. Undeterred, he made it back in time for the Olympics and won his third consecutive gold medal in Paris.

But in 2025, his elbow issues were creating a lot of problems. Crouser opted out of the Diamond League circuit, but competed only once this year. He finished the only time in his career that he appeared at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo and won the event to take a third consecutive gold in the world in his discipline.

From his NCAA days through more than a decade of elite competition, he never missed an entire outdoor season. Now, that streak has finally come to an end.