Coach Stuart McMillan has produced some great interviews and commentary on his blog recently, often focusing on what a national governing body needs to do to be successful. From an interesting interview with former world 100m record holder Donovan Bailey, and some tips for national governing bodies. This week he has posted my new favorite, a two-part interview with Canadian coach Derek Evely focusing on his thoughts on how to create high performance. Part 1 focuses on building a successful training center. Part 2, posted today, focuses more on politics at the federation level.

Derek and I go back to when he was the head coach of the Kamloops Track and Field club when they hired Anatoliy Bondarchuk. Simply put, Derek knows high performance. He has been involved with three highly-successful training centers and has taken a lot away from that experience. His work in Kamloops set the foundation for what turned into the Canadian National Throws Centre. Next he helped run the Canadian Athletic Coaching Centre where he played an integral role in developing the world’s best online coaching resource at the Canadian Athletics Coaching Centre. His latest role was leading the Loughborough High Performance Centre for UK Athletics leading up to the London Olympics. In addition to these management roles, Derek has always remained active in coaching, molding Olympians in the sprints and throws along the way. Derek has also been a great mentor of mine, and you can read more about his training philosophies in the extensive three-part interview I conducted with him last year.

Are you ready for the hammer season? Ready or not, elite throwers around the world are getting ready to enter the ring if they haven’t done so already. On Saturday, the first major US meet of the season will take place at the Mt. SAC Relays with throwers like Kibwé Johnson, Libor Charfreitag, Drew Loftin, Mark Dry, Sultana Frizell, Jessica Cosby, Sophie Hitchon, Sarah Holt, Britney Henry, and several other elites. The IAAF Hammer Challenge kicks off in a few weeks in Tokyo. I’ve had six months to speculate, talk about, and analyze the upcoming season. So without further ado here are the 10 reasons why I think everyone should watch the hammer this year.

1 – 80 meters still has to be right around the corner. It was first on my list last year and remains first on my list this year. I want to see the women’s world record broken with the first throw over 80 meters. A half dozen women are within striking distance and just one of them needs to get there. Betty Heidler has to be the favorite to reach the mark first. Not only is she the current world record holder at 79.42 meters, but her recent inconsistency plays to her advantage in this regard. Throwers like Lysenko have been so consistent that I would be more surprised by a big personal best. But with Heidler anything is possible and a big throw of 80 meters is definitely one of them.

Since the IAAF Hammer Challenge was announced after the 2009 season the format has remained unchanged. That means that the flaws it had when it started still remained after its third season finished in September. Hammer throwers have been aware of the many problems, coaches have been aware, fans have been aware, and even the IAAF was aware. Over the past few weeks only people with the power to do anything quietly announced that several more meetings have been added to the series. This helps improve the series by bringing it up to 16 total meets and the World Championships. Not every meet will host both men and women, but the new schedule still almost doubles the number of competitions. Men will now have eleven chances to start and women ten. However while the changes solve two of the problems facing the Hammer Challenge, it falls far short of fixing the major issues confronting the circuit.

As a coach, I try not to advise other coach’s athletes unless they ask for my input. Not only do I not want to get into a territory war with another coach, but I also think you need to know about an athlete’s background in order to give them advice that will actually help. If I point out one error in the throw, 99% of the time the thrower already knows they are doing it wrong and my input will just hurt their confidence without helping their throw. To provide better input I need to know what they are working on, what progress they have made, and what are some of their strengths and weaknesses. What may look like a bad throw could in fact show a lot of progress on their points of focus. Knowing more about their background can also give you a guide as to what cues may or may not work in fixing the problems.

While these rules are not set in stone anywhere, I generally expect others to abide by them just as I do. For me, it is just common courtesy. If the point of giving advice is to help the athlete, then a coach should do whatever they can to make sure their advice is helpful before giving it. And, for the most part, the throwing community respects that at meets. Rarely does a stranger come up to me and offer unsolicited technical advice. While the coaches that do may be well intentioned, their advice often comes across as trying to boost their own ego rather than helping me.

But something apparently transforms some people when they log on to the internet. Their moral compass is no longer aligned the same and they are no longer hesitant to make comments they wouldn’t dare make in person.

The first day of training in the snow each year fills me with the excitement of a schoolboy arriving to the first day of class. The snow mutes the air, leave a still, peaceful and relaxing silence to train in. I am not alone either. I was excited to see some of my young throwers not only train without complaint in the snow this year, but hit a few personal bests and brag about training in the snow on Facebook. It is a merit badge in winter throwing.

But it gets old. Fast. First is the physical element. I put together some tips for throwing the snow last year, and while it makes things better the weather still drags on you. Walking to retrieve the hammer drains the legs more and more every training. While you may think it would be good to be warmer, the slushy snow is just more slippery with throwing shoes on.

In an Olympic year, naturally many of the highlights came from London. But there were many more great stories throughout the season. Here is a selection of the top hammer throwing stories from the 2012 season, both good and bad.

1. London gives us the deepest women’s competition ever

As I noted in my Olympic recap, three women broke 77 meters for the first time ever at the same competition, four women (and eight throws) were at or over the Olympic record, five women broke 76 meters, and it took 74 meters just to place in the top eight and get to take the final three throws. According to the indispensable stats website Tilastopaja, the London Olympics featured the best marks ever for second through eleventh place. In other words, never has someone ever thrown so far yet placed so low. Before London a throw of 75 meters had never been left off the podium at any level. In London, two throwers with marks of 76 meters were left off the podium. The only thing that was missing was a world record, and even that was not that far off. With so many women currently at such a high level the 80 meter barrier must finally be close to falling after more than a decade of anticipation.

Although we did not see another world record this year, the women’s hammer throw was perhaps the most exciting event in track and field with a handful of throwers brushing up against the barrier. The Olympic final had five women over 76 meters and eight over 74 meters making it by far the deepest competition ever. Below I’ve compiled my top ten female throwers of the year. Earlier this week I posted my men’s rankings. Check back next week when I will recap some of the greatest moments of the year. If you want some additional statistics for the season, check out the IAAF’s performance lists.

Track and Field News will release their annual rankings soon, which are considered the international benchmark. Once again I can’t wait that long, so I’ve compiled my own year-end rankings.

My criteria is subjective, so let the debate begin. Feel free to post your own thoughts in the comment section below. If you want some stats for the season, check out the IAAF’s performance lists. Because both Ivan Tikhon (BLR) and Kirill Ikonnikov (RUS) have pending doping suspensions, I have not included them in the rankings.

Last month I wrote a lengthy post soliciting comments from readers on how I could focus my efforts to help the hammer throw and also make the efforts sustainable. After hearing some feedback and bouncing some ideas off of my old training partners, I have come up with a few ideas which I will roll out over the next six months. The first one is on this site.

My personal blog and website have morphed over the years from an avenue to write about my training and solicit sponsors, to a website dedicated to education about training. And it is not just coaches education or athlete education, but my own education as I learn while I research and write about every new topic on the site. The only problem I face is I love writing for it so much that I invest a lot of money and time into it. The data I have authored and compiled over the last five years could fill volumes of books: nearly 250,000 words and 350 posts.

I like to make even my smallest competitions a little special. The routine of putting on my uniform and picking up my competition hammer lets my body know that it is time to step it up. Part of this is saving my nicest, best hammer for use in competitions only. It is a treaty to be able to throw it. Once it gets in my hands I feel like I can do anything with it.

This year Polanik gave me one of their Premium Szymon Ziolkowski Line hammers to throw. I wanted to make sure I had thrown it enough before giving my feedback, but after one season and a dozen competitions I feel like I can finally give a good assessment of it.