Friday, 5 April 2019:
Matthew Denny is the powerhouse Australian thrower who has ditched the hammer to chase glory in the discus, while still finding time to hit golf balls a remarkably long way.
The versatile Denny did the rare discus and hammer double at last year's Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, finishing fourth and second respectively.
A few months later, he and coach Ben Thomson agreed something had to give - at least in the medium term - to give him the best chance of medalling at this year's world championships and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
So the decision was made to focus solely on the discus, where he's now fifth in the Australian alltime standings.
There was also a financial consideration, with hammer throwing not included on the Diamond League schedule.
Time is on the 125kg Queenslander's side.
At 22 he is still a novice in a discipline where athletes don't tend to peak until their late 20s.
"We started this big rebuild in October and since then I've put on five kilos of muscle mass and everything has gone up," said Denny.
"My discus technique is way better and my consistency is much better.
"We're in untested waters at the moment; we don't know what's possible and we're pretty excited about that."
Denny also gets pretty excited about golf - long-driving competitions in particular.
"My sports pysch, my coach and I, we work on it as a mental training sort of thing," he told AAP.
"Some of the movements are very similar to throwing; the margin for error, especially with the long-driving, is very small, if you're going to hit a long ball and hit it straight."
Last month, he picked up $1000 for winning a long-driving competition in Brisbane.
After several wild swings, his winning final drive was 389 metres (425 yards).
Even allowing for questions around the accuracy of the reading it stacks up against efforts at recent world long-driving championships.
"I was more nervous doing that, with less than 100 people watching, than I was at the Commonwealth Games, which is hilarious," said Denny.
"It was hard to concentrate because of the nerves.
"That's a big learning curve for me - discovering what my brain does in that situation."
Denny is favoured to win a third national discus title at Sydney Olympic Park Athletics Centre on Saturday evening.
