Metallica's famous album Master of Puppets may have been released nearly 20 years before Josh Willmer was born, but that didn't stop the 17-year-old Kiwi swimmer from jamming to it to hype himself up ahead of his gold medal swim.
Willmer pulled off a stunning comeback in the men's 100m breaststroke SB8 final to claim Commonwealth gold by just 0.07 seconds on Monday morning.
The Auckland teen said he had been nervous ahead of the race but credited listening to Metallica for helping him get in the zone.
"I was quite nervous for that race actually but I just chucked on some Metallica, jammed out for a couple of minutes and got in a zone," he told reporters after the medal ceremony.
In a photo finish, Willmer narrowly pipped Australian Timothy Hodge to the wall and immediately started celebrating as he saw the result come up on the big screen.
"I actually couldn't read the screen, I was in shock...all I saw was first next to my name and I was up [celebrating]."
The former Howick College student described standing atop the podium hearing the national anthem play as "unbelievable".
"There are no words [to describe it]. You've got to be up there to do it, it's real cool," he said.
Willmer is back in the pool again on Tuesday night (NZT) competing in the men's 100-metre butterfly S10 heats.
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