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Speaker 1: Christ Yeah, Welcome friends to the Christian o'connells Show podcast.

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Speaker 1: Christian O'Connell's Golden Moments coming down to the Games in Paris.

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Speaker 1: Steve Hooker in the two thousand and eight Beijing Olympics

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Speaker 1: winning gold in pole vault.

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Speaker 2: There were three of us that were clear favorites. Brad

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Speaker 2: Walker was number one ranked he jumped six oh four,

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Speaker 2: a new American record, and Yeb Genny lukin Enko from Russia.

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Speaker 2: I had jumped six oh one and I jumped six meters,

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Speaker 2: so it was clear that the competition was going to

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Speaker 2: come down to us. I felt confident that I could

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Speaker 2: jump one more high than ye have, Genny, and that

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Speaker 2: was always the strategy. Just back yourself that you're going

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Speaker 2: to jump the next height. My training partner Paul Burgess

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Speaker 2: just said, how are you feeling, and I just said

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Speaker 2: to him, I think I'll win. I didn't sleep really

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Speaker 2: the night before the competition. I started putting together a

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Speaker 2: playlist that I was going to listen to in my

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Speaker 2: warm up and I just put the word gold in there.

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Speaker 2: I made that this whole playlist of gold, and I

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Speaker 2: was like, this is it. This is the last piece

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Speaker 2: of the puzzle. I'm fully ready, but this competition, I've

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Speaker 2: got my gold playlist. I'm going to go. We're going go.

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Speaker 2: The twelve finalists line up and they read us out,

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Speaker 2: and the crowd responds to your name, and it's a

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Speaker 2: big moment, like that's a big, deep breath moment. I

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Speaker 2: started to feel good. At five meters ninety, I missed

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Speaker 2: my first two attempts. Ye Genny had missed his first

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Speaker 2: two attempts as well, and when I heard the crowd

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Speaker 2: grown after he missed his third attempt, I knew that

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Speaker 2: I had an opportunity to win. It was completely in

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Speaker 2: my own hands at that point, and it went from

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Speaker 2: being the hardest competition, really difficult circumstances to jump into

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Speaker 2: the easiest jump that I over did in my life.

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Speaker 2: I felt like I was sort of out a body,

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Speaker 2: almost not really even thinking about what I was doing

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Speaker 2: on that jump, in a complete flow stage. As soon

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Speaker 2: as I picked up the pole, my body just started

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Speaker 2: running down the runway. And the easiest jump I did

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Speaker 2: of the whole night, big clearance. And you know, as

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Speaker 2: a pole VOLI you get this moment where you clear

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Speaker 2: the bar and you know you've won, and you're still

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Speaker 2: six meters in the air and you get to get

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Speaker 2: to fall back to Earth and then celebrate. Yeah, I

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Speaker 2: hit the mat, I only had one gold. I went.

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Speaker 2: He celebrated with the whole for my teammates. And that's

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Speaker 2: my favorite moment, is that moment kind of jumping up

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Speaker 2: and down in trying of my teammates from the athletics

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Speaker 2: team and from the broader Olympics team, and I turn

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Speaker 2: around squat down and it hit me that I'd won.

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Speaker 2: And there's an image of that moment where I'm like,

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Speaker 2: I'm squating on my haunches and you can just see

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Speaker 2: this realization on my face of what's just happened, but

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Speaker 2: hitting home, and that's the picture that's in mum and

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Speaker 2: Dad's house.

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Speaker 1: Well.

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Speaker 2: Christian Connell's show podcast