Mbombelan shot put athlete Ashley Erasmus has made her mark in the USA, where she recently set a new record for her university in her first competition.

Erasmus (19) is currently attending and competing for the University of Southern California (USC), whom she joined late last year after a great year of athletics behind her. In 2024 Erasmus had qualified for the Paris Olympics, but unfortunately sustained an ankle injury only a week before she was due to compete in France.

This ruled her out of competition for a while, and not long thereafter she jetted off to Los Angeles to join the USC Trojans, as the university’s athletics team is known. She has been hard at work preparing for the 2025 athletics season since reaching the shores of the western United States, and finally returned to competition in January.

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Erasmus made her first appearance for the Trojans in the Red Raider Invitational, an indoor competition at the Sports Performance Centre at Texas Tech University, on Friday January 24. She competed in the women’s shot put, making her mark from the get-go.

She opened competition with a 16.83m throw, which immediately set her up in second place behind Paige Low of the University of Oklahoma who had opened matters with a throw of 16.96m. Low however improved significantly with her second throw, launching the shot put 18.05m.

Unable to match Low’s throw, Erasmus’ best throw came during her fourth attempt when she reached 17m. This made Erasmus the proud holder of a new record for the USC Trojans as the distance she threw is the furthest ever women’s throw by a freshman at USC. It is also the third-furthest a woman of all ages has thrown for USC, handing Erasmus a special place in the university’s athletics record books.