This week, Kamloops will be the host of the 2010 World Masters Indoor Athletics Championships.  Kamloops is often the host of sporting events and is even known as the Tournament Capital of Canada.  With thousands of athletes coming from across the globe, this will be one the largest events the city has ever hosted.  The whole town is behind the event and it should be a great success.

Like many in this sport, I am forever in debt to masters athletes.  Specifically, I am in debt to Ken Weinbel of the Seattle Masters Track Club.  His efforts built the only hammer cage in Seattle and he also let me borrow equipment and provided feedback when I first started out in the event.  I still enjoy training there when I’m in town, and always get motivated when 97-year-old Leon Joslin shows up to take some throws. Leon played high school football with Gerald Ford and ran track with Jesse Owens at Ohio State.  Rather than playing bridge, he throws the discus for fun and I get to throw alongside him.

Earlier this month I announced that I left my job at Univar Inc. I enjoyed the work, the people, and the flexibility, but the job required me to be in Seattle. As a result, I had to leave my coach any time I wanted a paycheck. This was not conducive to throwing far. With a lot on the line this year, I decided to leave the job and spend more time with my coach.

There are three things I look for in a job: (1) flexibility; (2) a valuable experience; and (3) the amount of time I’ll be able to spend with my coach. My job at Univar had two of those three elements. Today, I accepted a position that will give me all three elements. Starting in May, I will be working at UBS in Zurich.

As I’ve blogged about before, the hammer throw will be the one discipline excluded from the IAAF’s new Diamond League circuit.  Last November, the IAAF announced that it would instead create a Hammer Throw Challenge series.  Today, more details were release, including the schedule and prize money structure of the new series.

The Good

On the plus side, hammer throwers should be thankful that there even is a Hammer Throw Challenge.  Momentum has been pushing the hammer throw outside of the stadium over the past decade.  The Hammer Throw Challenge assures hammer throwers a spot in track and field, even if it is not on the world’s biggest stage.

The new Challenge will consist of eleven meetings.  Three of the meetings  will host both the men’s and women’s hammer throw.  The remaining eight meetings will host either the men’s or women’s hammer, giving each gender seven total competitions.  The complete schedule is as follows…

Take one look at Canadian freestyle skier Alex Bilodeau’s face today when the final results flashed on the scoreboard and showed his name in first place.  Take one look and you will immediately know what the Olympics are about: the athletes.  Bilodeau had the weight of the country on his shoulders.  Canada entered this Olympics in a unique position; it was the only country that had not won a gold medal while hosting multiple Games.  As a favorite on the second day of the games, many tapped  Bilodeau as a person that could break that streak.  And he did, reminding us in the process that as much as a country wants to succeed, these games really come down to individuals.  The Olympics are about those athletes that rise to the occasion and win.  And the Olympics are also about those athletes that weren’t even given the opportunity to compete.

A recent trend in track and field is for countries to not send every qualifying athlete to the Olympics.  In track and field, the IAAF sets the entry standards for the Olympics. However, several countries have set even higher standards for their own athletes.  Nowhere is this making more headlines than in the United Kingdom.  Charles van Commenee, the head coach of UK Athletics, has defended this decision by spewing clichés such as “No-one ever jumped higher by lowering the bar . . . these higher standards mean those selected will be expected to make finals not simply to compete. We are looking for contenders, not pretenders.”

The indoor track season is heating up, and it’s is making me anxious to start my season too. Yet again this year I’ve had the pleasure of providing news and commentary for the Evergreen Athletic Fund’s CollegeHammer.com and HSHammer.com.  This season has already produced some great results that have been fun to write about.  I’ve spent more time recently working on both sites and our traffic has doubled thanks in part to some great features we’ve posted on my training parter Kibwé Johson, world junior champion Walter Henning of LSU, my friend Brian Richotte, D3 record holder Kevin Becker, Norwegian champion Steffen Nerdal of Memphis, as well as emerging coaches Dave Hahn and Scott Block.

As anxious as I am to compete, however, I’m still willing to wait another until another month or two.  While the results are fun to watch, the indoor weight throw is not very helpful to the hammer throw.  That leaves me counting down the days until the outdoor season starts.  The past few years I’ve opened up just before the Mt. SAC Relays in mid-April.  This year, I can’t wait that long.  My results from last year left a bad taste in my mouth and I am eager to get back in the ring and show others that I am still on track to reach the 2012 Olympics.  My first meet will likely be at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma on March 13th.  Assuming all goes well, I will then be traveling the Arles, France (near Marseille) to represent Switzerland in the European Cup Winter Throwing on March 21st.  A tentative schedule for my season can be found here.