Interview: Nick Miller

Nicholas “Nick” Miller is a British track and field athlete who specialises in the hammer throw. He was the silver medallist at the 2014 Commonwealth Games and the gold medallist at the 2015 European Athletics U23 Championships. Throwers Unite had the opportunity to interview Nick.

Q: Last year 2015 was what a lot of people are calling your “break out year” being European u23 Champion world championship finalist and breaking the British record held by Martin Girvan. Now with the Olympic year here what are your goals and what are you doing to achieve them ?

A: Last year I think went well, not perfect though. This year I decided I needed to work more on the heavy hammers. I’ve never really done well with anything but the 7kg. Last year I threw about 62m with the 9kg at best, I thought it was higher but turned out to be a 8kg… my bad. So since then I really worked on bringing up my 9kg mark this year. I got unto 73.20m which i was very happy with. Now I’ve proved to myself my strength and specific strength is good enough to throw the 7kg a long way. Besides this it is a typical year just trying to make my technique more consistent and efficient with the 7kg.

Q: Do you Believe the Olympic A Standard of 77 metres is excessive ? Or do you Believe that it is encouraging new approaches to competition and training ?

A: The new 77m standard I think makes no difference, they will take 32 throwers to the olympics, so the 77m standard doesn’t really do much other than guarantee a spot. in reality about 75.50m is what i believe it will take to make the competition. Training and competition ideas will stay the same as always.

Q3: Being an NCAA Athlete do you play much into the debate of the Weight vs The hammer throw or do you try and use it as a training tool in some aspects ?

To me the weight throw has no purpose. When I competed with it I never really threw it in training. Maybe 30 throws in the whole year when i felt like it one day. I always found it would tear up my back and damage my hammer feeling. Also as there is no money in the event outside of the USA championships it has zero meaning in the rest of the world. Jf the event brought money I am sure popularity would increase but as of now it’s just a negative. Many people think they need to keep their competitive mentality through the winter as not throwing the hammer in competition for 7 months is too long without a competition. For me I think that having a break is good for your mind and also your body. You can learn to be competitive with yourself in training.

We thank Nick for his time and wish him the best of luck in the upcoming season.