Christian.

Welcome friends to the Christian O'Connell Show podcast.

Christian O'Connell's Golden Moments,

counting down to the Games in Paris.

Steve Hooker in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, winning gold in Polvold.

There was three of us that were clear favourites.

Brad Walker was number one ranked.

He jumped 604, a new American record,

and Yevgeny Lukenko from Russia.

I had jumped 601, and I jumped six metres.

So it was clear that the competition was going to come down to us.

I felt confident that I could jump one more height than Yevgeny.

And that was always the strategy.

Just back yourself that you're going to jump the next height. My training partner, Paul Burgess, just said, how are you feeling? And I just said to him,

I think I'll win. I didn't sleep really the night before the competition. I started putting together

a playlist that I was going to listen to in my warm up. And I just put the word gold in there.

I made out this whole playlist of gold. And I was like, this is it. This is the last piece of the puzzle. I'm fully ready.

In this competition, I've got my gold playlist. I'm going to go out and win gold. The 12

finalists line up and they read us out. The crowd responds to your name and it's a big moment. Like, that's a big, deep breath moment.

I started to feel good at 5 metres 90.

I missed my first two attempts.

Yvgeny had missed his first two attempts as well.

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