Life's a beach for former brickie Scott Lincoln who chases perfect 10 at home and glory on the continent
For years, Scott Lincoln took himself away from the demands of an athletics career by being a labourer on a brick yard. Now he goes to the beach in Australia.
Life has changed considerably for the 32-year-old from Northallerton who this weekend bids to win a 10th UK indoor shot putt title in Birmingham.
A disappointing performance at the Paris Olympics - one he had got to despite having lost the support of UK Sport to be a full-time athlete - proved the turning point.
He had been utterly dominant on the national stage for a decade, but a Commonwealth Games bronze medal in 2022 aside was struggling to translate that onto a global level.
So he moved on from his long-time coach at City of York Athletics Club, Paul Wilson, and took the plunge with a new coach in Melbourne. For the last two winters he has trained Down Under, the change of environment helping him to a career high eighth-place finish at the World Championships in Tokyo in September.
That got him back on the UK Sport funding programme and has given the former brickie a new lease of life.
“Thankfully those bricklaying shifts are behind me,” he says, having only landed in the UK from Melbourne on Friday morning.
“One hundred per cent it served me well, it kept me grounded and was good for a mental break from training all the time.
"When things weren’t going right I could go on the building site and forget about it.
“I’m benefiting though now from being completely dedicated to the sport. It’s not just the stuff you see in the gym, it’s not just the stuff you see in the circle, it’s having the time to eat correctly, being able to rest correctly. Even when I’m in Australia I’m on the beach quite often. I go swimming in the sea after training most days. It’s a different way of life.
“I came away disappointed from Paris and it probably kicked me into gear to make the change. I’d been with Paul since I’d started. I spoke with the coach over there, he said come over and see how you get on. I’d booked a flight to Melbourne three days later.”
The result in Tokyo justified the decision. “It was the first major with a new coach, so a lot of things were different, but it was a huge step forward for me, not only putting my name on the world stage but also just proving that I can do it at that level,” says the two-time Olympian. “Now I’ve got that belief, hopefully it becomes a bit easier.”
His season begins in Birmingham where he will look to hit double figures in shot putt titles and book a place at the World Indoor Championships in Poland in March.
Having only landed Friday morning, Lincoln intends on powering through the jet lag to prove he is once again the best of British.
“You either compete within 48 hours or you leave it a week,” he says of the jet lag. “It doesn’t affect you until day three.”
He will return to his tough training regime – “I’ve got a lot of horsepower from the gym, so we’ll see how that transfers to the ball” - and dips in the sea to cool off for a few weeks before heading back to England to focus on a huge summer, headlined by the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and European Championships in Birmingham.
“It’s going to be an exciting summer,” says Lincoln, who captained the GB team at last year’s European Indoors in a further nod to his growing reputation.
“I’ve got good memories of Birmingham from the last Commonwealth Games. I don’t want to come away from Commonwealths and Europeans without a medal.”