photo by: Nick Krug

Competitor Christian Cantwell throws his arms in the air with a roar as he watches his final throw of the the night during the Downtown Olympic Shot Put event on Friday, April 17, 2015 at the intersection of Eighth and New Hampshire streets. Cantwell won the competion with a throw of 70 feet six and one-half inches.

The buzz starts a day early, when pedestrians stop on sidewalks and watch city workers build the shot-put sector on Eighth Street between Vermont and New Hampshire. Everyone who sees it spreads the word that the behemoths are back in town, ready to super-charge another night in front of a big, boisterous crowd.

The sixth annual Lawrence Downtown Shotput is scheduled to start at 6 p.m. today, and as usual, the friendly giants, past and future Olympians, want those who crowd the sidewalks to quickly become the anti-golf gallery, the louder the better. The competitors feed off the energy the way they fed off 32-ounce steaks Thursday night. Adrenaline ping pongs back and forth between the competitors and spectators, all crammed into one city block.

“This is one of the best events of the year,” said Tim Nedow, a Canadian who is one of the six men in the 10-man field ranked in the top 10 in the world. “Every time I come here it gets bigger and bigger and gets more attention. It’s so fun to come to this event. It helps me throw far because I get motivated and excited. It’s what I train for. I don’t want to train and then go to a track and no one’s there and you’re so far away from people. It’s hard to get pumped up for that. Here, for every throw all eyes are on you, music’s playing, everything’s perfect for you to throw far.”

And throw far the competitors do every year. In each of the first five years of the event, the winner surpassed 70 feet. Inaugural winner Dylan Armstrong is the only one not in this year’s field. Reese Hoffa (2012), Ryan Whiting (2013) and Christian Cantwell (2014, 2015) and O’Dayne Richards of Jamaica, ranked No. 3 in the world, will gun for the crown.

And don’t discount Nedow, who sounded extremely fired up for the event.

“I’m in good shape,” Nedow said. “I’ve been training pretty hard and it’s going really well. I’m not coming here to get second. I’ll try to win. You never know.”

Street shotput events have taken the athletes from forgotten men in the middle of the infield as runners circle the track to down-to-earth giants lionized by city dwellers.

“It’s such a great event,” Nedow said. “And there are a couple of more cities that are doing it. I was at one in Croatia last year that was super fun. I did it in Finland last year. It was super fun. Every year here gets more fun.”

This year’s field is a difficult one to forecast. For one thing, it’s loaded. For another, Cantwell, two-time defending champion, was slowed during offseason training by a hand injury and ankle injury.

“It’s unfortunate the timing of it,” Cantwell said. “I didn’t know if there would be a season for me. Both (injuries) lingered. … I’m hoping that tomorrow is a spark plug. The saying in our sport is sometimes a meet can replace a week’s worth of workouts. That speed, sometimes your body forgets, in particular when you’re guarding something, how to do that. You’ve got to wake it up. That’s just how it works. Your body just has to get used to going 100 percent. It’s had that governor on for a while and you have to learn how to step on the gas.”

With six years of experience, the crowd won’t have any trouble stepping on the gas and fueling the competitors to achieve great feats.