High jump star Hamish Kerr is determined to reach new heights this year, off the back of a 10th-place finish at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.
The 25-year-old cleared the 2.30m mark in Japan, and now has his sights set on performing even better at the World Championships and Commonwealth Games in 2022.
Kerr more than raised the bar in 2021. The tenth-placed finish in Tokyo caught plenty of attention, and months later that performance is still sinking in.
"I've begun to sort of realise the context of my performance and what it means for me and the sport and what my future holds," Kerr tells Newshub.
Clearing 2.30m on the world stage has made that future even brighter, and has given him the confidence to know he belongs at the top.
"The most pleasing thing for me is I just felt at home," he adds.
"In the past when I've gone to those competitions I've felt like a bit of an outsider, comparing myself to other guys like 'if that's what they're doing, should I be doing that?'"
But to feel at home in Tokyo, he needed to put himself back in New Zealand using a visualization technique as a way to stay calm in the Olympic final.
"Before each jump, I was literally just imagining myself at my bach.
"I knew that regardless of what happened, in a couple of weeks I'd be back at the bach, just hanging out."
And it worked, but with a bumper 2022 coming he won't be spending much time at the bach - physically at least.
"It's kind of weird. [I'll] come back, have a couple of months off and now we're straight back into it.
"World champs for us is a massive, massive event, and we've got that two weeks before Comm Games, so it's going to be pretty hectic."
A hectic year that Kerr can no doubt handle.
