The doors have been locked on the indoor arenas and the action swiftly moves outdoors in style this weekend with the 15th European Cup Winter Throwing.
A galaxy of leading senior and under-23 field eventers, no doubt looking forward to competing in Leiria, as the Portuguese city stages the cup for the second successive time.
One of the biggest events will be the men’s hammer which sees a renewal in the rivalry of Hungary’s Krisztian Pars and Poland’s Pawel Fajdek.
A year ago in this event, world champion Fajdek won by 79 centimetres from Olympic champion Pars with a throw of 78.75m.
But then in the summer, at the European Athletics Championships in Zurich, Pars retained his title with the difference between them this time just 64 centimetres as the Hungarian finished with 82.69m.
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And as Pars looks for victory, his teammate Anita Marton will be doing the same in the women’s shot put which brings together the top three from last weekend’s European Athletics Indoor Championships in Prague.
Marton broke the national record with a winning effort of 19.23m to snatch gold from Belarusian Yuliya Leantsiuk, with 18.60m, and Bulgaria’s Radoslava Mavrodieva with 17.83m.
Fresh from finishing fourth in Prague with 20.59m and fifth with 20.48m respectively, Spain’s Borja Vivas and Luxembourg’s Bob Bertemes will be back in the men’s shot put.
Twelve months ago Latvia’s Zigismunds Sirmais won the Winter Throwing javelin contest with 81.60m as he beat Thomas Rohler, with 81.18m. The German then went on to win the IAAF Diamond race 2014.
In the men's discus, there will be three finallists from Zurich: Viktor Butenko, of Russia, who was fifth, Spain’s Frank Casanas, who was eighth and Lithuanian Andrius Gudzius, who finished 10th.
Slovakia’s Martina Hrasnova, the Zurich silver medallist, and Poland’s Joanna Fiodorow, who won bronze, will face Germany’s world record-holder Betty Heidler in the women's hammer.
And it is a similar story in the discus as the Zurich silver and bronze medallists clash, with France’s Melina Robert-Michon meeting Shanice Craft, of Germany, having finished ahead of her by exactly a metre at the Letzigrund Stadium with 65.33m.
It is early days in the javelin rankings but Slovenia’s Martina Ratej leads the way with 65.75m from Ptuj at the end of last month and the top three from this event last year are back.
Ratej was third then with 59.57m as Linda Stahl won with 61.20m ahead of fellow German Katharina Molitor with 60.97m.
In the under-23s, the two hammer events will be interesting as both Belarusian hammer thrower Yury Vasilchanka, with 73.19m, and Russian Yelizaveta Tsareva, with 71.35m, have already achieved personal bests this year.