Just finished up my first international competition of the year at the Victoria Track Classic last night. I threw 76.52m (251ft) to take third place overall. While it’s not near my 80m season best or my 83m personal best it is still a step in the right direction after a poor performance at the USA Championships  a little over a week ago.

I failed to get a proper warmup at the USA Championships and it was a tough lesson to learn. Prize money is good for us there and the opportunities that are opened up for the US Champion is priceless. So its easy to say, I will never make that mistake again!

Canada has a great track series that takes place right after the USA Championships. It’s a great opportunity to compete, make a little bit of money, and the travel is so much easier than going to Europe.

I got into the Victoria Track Classic (8th) and the Harry Jerome Classic (10th).  And after I made my travel arrangements I found out I also got into a meet in Kuortane Finland (13th) and Karlstad Sweden (16th). You do the math, that’s four meets in eight days! That’s a lot of throwing for a javelin thrower, and a lot of travel.

But I could not be more excited to be a part of these meets. The Canadian series is called the national track league and it consists of five meets in Canada of which two have men’s javelin. The meet directors treat you really nice and the competition is normally pretty good.

Yesterday I started out a little flat, missing positions again and I just decided I wasn’t going to let myself throw poorly again. I worked on pulling over the top in my 3^rd round and being aggressive on the runway. I wasn’t going to throw farther unless I really attacked the finish. I had one pretty good throw at 76.52m which put me in second at the time, behind my Olympic teammate Craig Kinsley (81.35m).

Knowing that I had four meets in eight days and that I had a good throw that might hold on for second place I decided to shut it down after four throws and rest up. Unfortunately my other Olympic teammate Sean Furey uncorked an 81.19m throw in the fourth round and passed me on his way to second place.

Honestly I couldn’t be happier for Craig and Sean. Craig had a rough season last year with injuries and has been fighting his way back to the top. He really deserves it. And Sean is a great guy and a tremendous athlete. If anyone is going to beat me I would hope it would be one of these guys.

So after a 90 minute ferry ride to Vancouver I am competing tomorrow at the Harry Jerome Classic. The field in the men’s javelin looks deep with a repeat of the best guys at the USA Championships plus some talented Canadians.

After I compete I fly to New York, then Iceland, and Helsinki then the meet shuttle will take us to Kuortane four hours north.

Kuortane is mecca of javelin and it’s gonna be a great opportunity to throw there. Javelin is the featured event and all eyes will be watching us. It’s kind of a polar opposite experience of what we get in America where we commonly throw outside the stadium in a nearby field.

After Kuortane I will fly to Stockholm and shuttled to Karlstad which has always been a meet I have wanted to compete at. One year they had the hammer throw over a river and if you didn’t throw 70m in the hammer they had scuba divers out in the water ready to fish your implement out of the bottom of the river. It just always seemed like a great meet!

After Karlstad I decided to stay in Europe and train back in Germany to prepare for more competitions. We have a meet in Austria lined up August 9^th but we will be looking for competitions before and after that as well.

I want to get a lot of experience, I want to learn to throw in any conditions, under any travel arrangements, and I want to compete with the best.

I am super fit, healthy, and I am ready to throw far. It’s kind of like playing the slots in Las Vegas; I know if I keep pulling the handle it will eventually pay out big. If I can get into enough competitions I will get some far throws.

Travel Schedule

Portland, Oregon	July 7th
Victoria BC	July 8th	Victoria Track Classic
Vancoouver BC	July 10th	Harry Jerome Classic
New York	July 11th
Ireland	July 12th
Helsinki, Finland	July 12th
Kuortane, Finland	July 13th	Kuortane Games
Vaasa Finland	July 14th
Stockholm, Sweden	July 14th
Karlstad, Sweden	July 16th	Karlstad Grand Prix
Stockholm, Sweden	July 17th
Frankfurt, Germany	July 17th
Offenburg, Germany	July 17th	Train in Germany
Andorf, Austria	August 9th	Austria Meet

 

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