Athletics: DIY Phil hammers big names

MANCHESTER - The big night which Phil Jensen believed would never arrive became reality in Manchester.

To get the pun over with first: the Waikato-raised Jensen is the DIY man with a hammer.

His path to winning the silver medal in the hammer throw at the Games is so home-grown and do-it-yourself that he had never competed in Europe before.

Jensen, who first represented New Zealand at the Games in Auckland in 1990, made the team to Kuala Lumpur four years ago, but that was a rare venture overseas.

"My priorities are my family and my career. The hammer is not an obsession. It's very much third on my list," computer engineer Jensen said in an almost bafflingly matter-of-fact manner.

"Winning is not as exciting as having children."

Jensen's parents, who also have five daughters, have recently moved to Morrinsville from Tahuna.

The 34-year-old Jensen now lives in Wellington with his wife, Katrina, and their daughters, Ahna (6) and Renee (2).

There he has continued his on-and-off career as a hammer thrower which began in earnest in the late 1980s.

He first picked up the ball and chain when, as a teenage discus thrower, he saw someone else hurling the object at an athletics meeting. But he has often put it down in the 20 years since.

Like the old Sinatra song, Jensen has done it his way. He has trained in the isolation of New Zealand in a sport which is a distant runner in the publicity stakes.

A "wind-chill factor of minus five" looms large in his training regime in the capital.

Jensen competes just six or so times a year, while those he faced in Manchester go into combat many times more than that and against stiff opposition.

They included the 1998 champion, Australian Stuart Rendell, who finished fourth this time.

Jensen qualified for the Games only late last month. Yet only Englishman Mick Jones, the silver medallist four years ago, had the answer when Jensen put the question in front of a packed house.

Jones, with the gold already in the bag, finished off the job with a 72.55m throw as his countryman Paul Head stirred up the crowd to draw a last big effort out of the winner.

On a great night of athletics, Jensen played his part. All the athletes were experiencing the buzz of performing in front of a crowd of 38,000, but for Jensen, the experience was more unusual than most.

He had to deal with the distraction of the spectators raising a huge cheer for the English runners involved in various races while the hammer competition played out.

Yet he cranked out a 69.48m throw on his fourth attempt - a distance similar to his best previous Games throws which brought him fifth and sixth placings. It was good enough for silver this time.

Jensen turned to an individual sport after playing rugby for New Zealand secondary schools in the mid-1980s and as a hooker and wing for Waikato B, because he could train and compete at his own beck and call.

He described the thrill of his sport thus: "Imagine taking a 16lb [7.2kg] bowling ball, sticking it on the end of a broomstick, and throwing that four storeys high and almost the length of a football field.

"Winning the silver has given me a great deal of elation.

"I might have had it in the back of my mind, but in reality I suppose I thought that something like this would never happen.

"I've always stopped competing in the past, but I'm going to keep going this time.

"There are more years left in me yet."

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