In an initiative backed by former Olympic heptathlon champion Denise Lewis (pictured), the first phase of assessments in the Talent 2016: Future Throws Star Initiative was completed on 75 potential medallists of the future during a two-day programme.

UK Athletics and the UK Talent Team - a collaboration between UK Sport and the English Institute of Sport - had invited athletes to the National Performance Centre to undergo a series of physical and physiological assessments in a competitive environment, while being analysed on their ability to develop specific movement patterns suited to throw events.

Shaun Pickering, UK Athletics' National Event Lead: Heavy Throws, said: "We probably had around 40 guys and 35 girls over the course of the two days and we really put them through their paces.

"They came from various different sporting backgrounds such as basketball and rowing, but it worked well - we got an interesting mix."

The UK Talent Team had considered findings from previous talent initiatives such as Sporting Giants, Girls4Gold, Pitch2Podium and Tall and Talented to set the following criteria:

Women: Under 22 years old, taller than 180cm and weighing more than 70kg

Men: Under 21 years old, taller than 186cm and weighing more than 96kg

"This was an exciting opportunity to look for new talent in the heavy throws events," said Pickering.

"We've seen a lot of great potential throwers lost to sports such as rugby and netball over recent years, and this Talent ID programme, working together with UK Sport and the EIS to identify future throws stars from among their 'Pitch to Podium' or 'Tall and Talented' schemes, is aiming to bring some of that talent back to athletics.

"We're now looking forward to a second round with the best athletes from the weekend in February.

"We're probably looking at inviting 10 guys and 10 girls.

"Not everyone had done the test activities before and for others it was physically tough because they were quite young - for a young guy of 16 doing an overhead throw with a senior weight shot putt, that's tough.

"Rather than just looking at distances, in some instances we were looking at their movement and how they took on board advice.

"We're now trawling through data along with some of the other coaches and athletes we had there so see how it compares to what we saw and who we selected from our initial visual appraisals."

Nik Diaper, from the UK Talent Team, said: "It's great to be supporting UKA on this particular project.

"We've had some significant recent successes from previous talent projects with other sports and we hope the same can happen for the heavy throws disciplines.

"Our focus now is to support UKA in determining who has genuine potential to become a world class thrower and we're really looking forward to the phase two assessment in February."