Australian Matthew Denny has lived up to his billing as a noted big-event performer by qualifying fourth for Saturday's discus final at the Tokyo Olympics.
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Now fully recovered from a serious rib cartilage injury, the big Queenslander was just a metre shy of his personal best on Friday with an impressive throw of 65.13m.
World No.1 Daniel Stahl from Sweden confirmed his gold-medal favouritism, needing just one throw to be the only man to better the automatic qualifying mark of 66m.
But in what otherwise shapes as a wide-open final, the 25-year-old Denny has put himself right in the mix to become the first Australian man to win an Olympic discus medal.
"I'm not a guy to go out and say I'm going to win gold or whatever," said Denny, who was sixth at the 2019 world championships in Doha.
"It's a stacked comp, it's going to be tough.
"I'm in really good form when it counts to get the actual distance I need.
"If there's a PB there then sweet and if we go further than that then I'm laughing.
"My thing is more to perform when that sliding-door moment happens and grab whatever you can."
Readily admitting he's no one's idea of a morning person, Denny was particularly pleased to perform so well in a qualifying round that started at 9.45am local time.
"It was nice to get a good clean throw out and shake out a bit of the anticipation," he told the Seven Network.
"I don't like waiting.
"It was good fun out there and good to be back at an international competition."
Among the big names to crash out in qualifying were two-time Olympic silver medallist Piotr Malachowski from Poland and Jamaican Fedrick Dacres, the 2018 Commonwealth Games champion.
Australian Associated Press
