Former Missouri shot putter Christian Cantwell heads for Beijing Monday for his first Olympics, but won't be attending the opening ceremonies.

"It's too much walking and energy and stuff to do that," Cantwell said. "I mean the opening ceremonies I've heard is four or five hours just standing and waiting in that heat and all that, that doesn't really sound like a good time to me, so I'll go out and practice during that time."

And for Cantwell, its practice, not pre-throw warm-ups, that matter.

"That's basically my routine, I just walk around, save a little energy," Cantwell said. "I think I was just wearing myself out before, so I kind of like this. I go into it really easy, I start up warming up for my throws nice and slow, and that's how I do it now. I think I like it for the time being."

"To have the ability to just walk in the ring mentally prepared, just to walk in the ring with zero warmup and deliver a huge throw, that's an advantage," said Mizzou's throwing coach Britt Halter.

An advantage to help him win gold--a prediction he'll make for another tiger Olympian, but not for himself.

"Ben [Askren] is, he'll probably get gold actually," Cantwell said. "I'm not like Ben, I'm not gonna say, because I've done that in the past and it didn't work, so I'm just gonna give it hell and see what happens."

And if everything happens as Cantwell plans, the Beijing Olympics will be worth his four year wait.

The shot-put qualifying will be Thursday August 14th, with the finals on August 15th.