How to Create a Successful Training Center
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.
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 
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.
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.

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. 





