UNIVERSITY PARK - Michael Robertson has done the same move thousands of times.

He sets his feet, gently leans back, swings his arms, glides across a cement ring and tosses a practice ring into the net.

"Hopefully I'm going to be on auto pilot," he says.

He practices his footwork. Each technical detail has to be perfect, without him thinking.

"Just keep on a flow, keep making these last minute improvements and just keep getting better," Roberston says.

In less than two weeks he'll be on his way to Beijing for his first Olympics.

Aaron Chimbel / WFAA.com

Michael Robertson practices for the Olympics at SMU.

Robertson, who lives in Dallas, is a discus thrower, who was a national champion and winner at the Pan American Games last year.

Four years ago he narrowly missed making the Olympic team…

"I came back this year dead set on going to the Olympic trials and doing the best that I could and making that team," he says, "and it came true."

When he was in the seventh grade Robertson wanted to play football, but his school in Florida didn't have a team. Then he saw a story about discus and shot put legend John Godina in a magazine and started throwing in his back yard.

He was 12, fell in love with the sport and forgot about football.

"I guess I was lucky, I found something I was built for and I love," he says.

Then Robertson set his goal to reach the Olympics.

"I had hoped, I had dreams of it, but the difference between dreams and reality is a long, long road," he says. "It was a 12 year road for me."

After high school, he went to SMU and was on the track and field team for two years, but then the school folded the men's program and he was forced to transfer to Stanford.

An especially challenging adjustment, he says, because of the nature of his sport.

"It takes a while to get on the same as a coach in a technical even like discus," Robertson says. "But I think over time it was a big help. It helped me to find myself… and become less reliant on coaches."

Now 24, he's focusing on his routine. He knows all of his Olympic competitors will be strong, so he focuses on technique as much as anything.

"It's a balancing act," he says.

At 265 pounds, he can throw a four and a half pound discus more than 200 feet. At the Olympics he must focus on doing that without getting caught up in just being in Beijing.

"Put all my energy, all my power and all those 12 years of training and build up into that first throw and I guess it's pressure when I think of it that way, but I hope to be on auto pilot," he says.