Scott Lincoln and the motivation driving him on to go at least one better at World Indoors
A MEASLY two centimetres was all that separated shot putter Scott Lincoln from the third major medal of his career at the European Indoor Athletics Championships a year ago.
Named as captain of the Great Britain and Northern Ireland team for the event in the Netherlands, Lincoln’s best heave of 20m73 was nudged into fourth by Tomas Stanek of the Czech Republic.
“Not that I’m bitter,” said the 32-year-old from Northallerton, a long-time member of the City of York Athletics Club.
“But it gives me the necessary motivation.
"I’ve got a lot of horsepower from my work in the gym, so we’ll see how that transfers to the ball.”
Lincoln has been working hard and training smarter from his new base in Melbourne and returned home last month to blitz the field at the UK Indoor Championships and win his national title for a record-extending 10th time.
It earned him a place on the GB&I squad for this weekend’s World Indoor Championships in Torun, Poland, where he will once again try and translate that national dominance into global medals.
“All the hard work has been done, it’s just a matter of going in there and doing what I’ve been doing all year,” said Lincoln, whose eighth-place finish at last year’s outdoor World Championships in Tokyo was his best performance on the big stage.
As for being captain of the GB&I team for the Europeans last year, he said: “It was great to be asked. Again it was a nice acknowledgement of the changes GB have made towards me.
“It was nice to go out there and have that extra responsibility and confidence that it gave me, it was an honour to lead the team. I love that team aspect, I’m from a rugby background.
“I just had to do a speech and keep everyone motivated, there were a lot of debutants so it was a matter of keeping their heads in the right place and use my experience to help them.”
Lincoln now forms part of an experienced GB squad for the indoor championships which run from Friday to Sunday, headlined by Keely Hodgkinson, Jeremiah Azu, Molly Caudery and Josh Kerr.