Competing in the 2000 Olympics in Sydney was the "opportunity of a lifetime," Amy Palmer says. Now she's hoping it wasn't a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
The former BYU athlete and Utah native will attempt to qualify for the Athens Olympics in the hammer throw during July's U.S. trials.
Palmer, 29, finished eighth in the Sydney Olympics in 2000, the first year the hammer was an official Olympic event. With that experience under her belt, she figures she has an advantage over her competitors.
"I know what to expect, especially if I make the team," Palmer said. "There's a knowledge and an understanding of what's taking place and what's going on."
The same thing applies to the Olympic trials. She's familiar with the stadium and the procedure, having made the team once already. "I've been there. It's nothing new."
But she's still going to have to perform well under the pressure of the trials, she said. However, it's mostly pressure from within, not without, that she feels.
"I probably put more pressure on myself than anybody," Palmer said, "just because you train so hard and sacrifice things from your family and time from them. You just want to do really well because you've been working so hard for something."
Palmer competed at the Pre-Trials Sprint and Power Track and Field Meet at BYU Friday and Saturday, finishing fifth in the hammer throw with a toss of 217-7 (66.32 meters), just one more step in preparation for the U.S. trials next month.
After training so hard in her first attempt to garner a gold medal, Palmer wasn't so sure she'd be back to try it again.
"Our plans after the Sydney games were to keep training and compete, but once I got home and kind of calmed down from everything, I was a little overwhelmed and just basically burnt out," Palmer said.
She told her coach, Tapio Kuusela, that she needed some time to step back from the intense training to think about where she wanted to go from there. She and her husband, Rick, talked about having a baby, but time went by without Amy getting pregnant.
She decided to start training seriously again. "And then, voila! Before you know it I'm pregnant and we're going to have a baby."
The birth of Palmer's daughter, Reghan, in November 2002 pushed back her training schedule. She didn't start in earnest until March 2003.
That made her four-year wait shorter than athletes who spend the whole time in training. But things worked out for her, Palmer said.
"I took time off, which I needed to do, so that I could kind of refocus on what I wanted to do. Hopefully, that's been the best for me."
Palmer said the returning to training after a pregnancy helped her to focus on technique rather than just raw talent.
"It's been kind of an interesting experience, looking at it from a different aspect than I did four years ago," she said.
As a high school freshman at Grantsville High School, Palmer didn't intend to compete in track and field, but she joined the team midway through the season at the suggestion of a friend's father.
Following a successful career at Grantsville, where she was a state champion in shot put, discus and javelin as a senior in 1993, Palmer went on to become an All-American thrower at BYU.
In 1996, she threw the hammer in Atlanta, where the destiny of hammer-throwing as an Olympic event was determined. Her fifth-place finish convinced her she was good enough to compete at that level and to focus on the hammer instead of shot put, though her coach still thinks she could compete well in the shot put.
Palmer not only throws hammers, she sells them. Hammers of the more common hardware-store variety, that is. She works at the Home Depot in West Valley, taking advantage of the Olympic-sized perks the retailer offers for athletes in the Olympic Job Opportunities Program. Palmer works part-time hours as a cashier for full-time compensation.
But Palmer's dream job is still the one where she throws hammers, not sells them. She's ready to have another experience like Sydney, or one a little more golden, in Athens.
"It was the best experience," she said of her first Olympics, "and, hopefully, we'll be able to do it again this time. I don't want it to be over yet."
E-mail: rburton@desnews.com