British thrower hopes a heavy spell of training in Australia will reap dividends at this weekend's UK Indoor Champs and beyond in 2026.

Throwers call it "the pits" – a painful period of training where strength gains are made and exhaustion is guaranteed. It is similar to the base building period for a marathon runner but with heavy weights instead of of mileage.

Scott Lincoln entered the pits earlier this winter and has emerged in good form ahead of this weekend’s Novuna UK Indoor Championships. Unbeaten at the national champs for the past decade, he is aiming to win his 21st title and must be one of the strongest favourites of the weekend.

Lincoln’s heavy winter work has been conducted in the warm weather of the Australian summer. He moved to Melbourne last winter to team up with coach Dale Stevenson and this is his second winter ‘Down Under’ although he arrived back in Britain a few days ago to compete in Birmingham.

“Dale is all about getting us ready for the major,” Lincoln explains, referring to the biggest championships of the year. “The major is the key point and we work around that. Everything is set toward that one major and he prepares us best for that and I think it showed in Tokyo last year. We hadn’t been working together for too long either.”

Lincoln finished eighth in Tokyo, the best place by a British shot putter, male or female, in world championships history. It was a performance that also earned him lottery funding this year.

“The first competition I did with Dale we were in the middle of what we call ‘the pits’ – a heavy phase of training where I could hardly move,” Lincoln continues. “I remember throwing 17 metres at the start of the week and then he dropped it on me that I was competing on Saturday. I managed to throw about 19.90m in the first competition with him. I thought ‘what have I done? I’ve moved to the other side of the world and thrown 19.90m! But I stuck with it.

“I went to the World Indoors and was a bit disappointed with that (12th place) and then gutted I didn’t win a medal at the European Indoors (fourth place, two centimetres away from the podium).

“In the outdoor season I had a few niggles to manage but threw pretty well in Halle. Then I came back to Australia about three or four weeks before the Worlds in Tokyo and it was like ‘Bam! Bam! Bam! Eat at this time. We’ll do this lifting. Then we’ll go home. We’ll do this session and then go home’. It was like different gravy. Dale was on it.

“He was telling me things weeks beforehand such as the training venue (in Tokyo) being 40 minutes away and that we would have to be prepared for that. So I knew everything that was going to happen before I got there whereas I think it shocked a lot of people. They were shocked that they had to get on to a bus to go to the training venue and things like that whereas Dale was constantly one step ahead, which in turn gave me confidence.”

Lincoln met Stevenson at a training camp in Loughborough in 2018 and the two stayed in touch. They met again at the Paris Olympics for a coffee and Stevenson, who as an athlete himself threw the shot for Australia at London 2012, gave Lincoln an open invite to come over to Australia whenever he wanted.

Lincoln remembers: “I called Dale at the end of the season. I had a conversation with my coach Paul and left on good terms. And then I took up Dale’s offer. For me it was a time for change. There were no bad feelings toward Paul. I just wanted something fresh.

“I’d been with Paul since I started and was thankful of what he did for me. But I felt like I kept coming to majors and choking and I was getting pretty sick of that. I just fancied something fresh and which gave me my spark back, I guess. And that’s what Australia has done.”

Stevenson’s group consists of a mixture of throwers and includes Olympic discus medallist Matt Denny and shot putter Jacko Gill. “It’s a good environment,” says Lincoln. “We all socialise with each other so it’s very much like a little family away from home. They are a good bunch to be around. Plenty of banter.”

Lincoln lives just south of Melbourne and has an apartment five minutes from beach. “I have good people around me,” he says, “I’m very fortunate to be where I am.

“I went to the Aussie open tennis recently and the Ashes on Boxing Day. There are some bucket list things to do and I’m ticking them off. It’s a super cool place to be.”

But he adds: “Of course I miss my family and there’s something about the Yorkshire countryside which is in my heart. The views along the coast line in Australia are great but the view from my bedroom window at home is unmatched for me personally and I do love the cold and British winters.

“It’s constantly good weather in Melbourne and sounds ridiculous to complain about it. There’s something humbling about a British winter.”

At the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham in 2022, Lincoln won a bronze medal. In Los Angeles in two years’ time he hopes to compete at his third Olympics. Yet the 32-year-old feels something is missing.

“This might sound ridiculous but I kind of feel like I’ve got nothing to show for my career so far,” he says. “Yes the British titles are nice. The medal at the last Commonwealth Games was probably a shock and really nice. But I feel I’ve had a few missed opportunities where I could have had some European medals and could have pushed on toward world medals potentially. I feel like I’ve got so much more to give.”

What is the main goal that drives him? Commonwealth gold? A European medal? Reaching the next Olympics? Breaking the long-standing British record?

“I’d say the British record is the main one that gets me through sessions,” Lincoln says. “I want to be the first 22-metre-plus thrower in Britain.

“Imagine a 30-plus-year-old coming out and breaking the British record. That would be pretty nuts. When I do that, it’s knocking on the door for medals at any major champs. If I can do that in the next year or two then I should be in a good run up to the next Olympics.”

Geoff Capes, who died in 2024 aged 75, holds the British record with 21.68m from 1980, but Carl Myerscough threw an unratified 21.92m in 2003. Lincoln would love to take the record into 22-metre territory, though.

“Geoff was good friends with my old coach (Paul Wilson) and I was good friends with him. It’s sad he’s not here anymore but he would be the first one to congratulate me for breaking the British record. He would have been the first one on the phone.

“Every time I did PBs or whatever he would say, “About bloody time!” He liked to keep you humble.

“I once threw a PB and qualified for the Tokyo Olympics outright. I was absolutely buzzing and I remember calling him as I knew he wanted to speak to me and the first 40-50 seconds or so of the phone call was him swearing and belittling me and telling me not to get big headed. But it was good and a humbling experience.

“You need moments like that to keep you grounded. I’d love to beat his distance and become the first 22-metre thrower from Britain.”

After this weekend’s national champs, Lincoln is aiming for the World Indoor Championships in Poland followed by a summer that includes the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, European Champs in Birmingham and, he hopes, a crack at the British shot put record.

“Everything is falling into place and I’m excited for the season to begin really,” he says.