Pearson to double up in Delhi
John Salvado, AAP October 5, 2010, 7:43 pm Send
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Sprint queen Sally Pearson has made the shock decision to chase a golden double in Delhi by adding the glamour 100m event to her Commonwealth Games program.
Pearson last contested both events at international level at the 2007 world championships in Osaka before concentrating on the 100m hurdles, where she won silver at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
She missed much of early 2010 with a back injury suffered just before last year’s world titles.
But after impressing in her 100m hurdles in the European summer season and showing she had lost none of her flat speed while running a slick 150m in England last month, the secret plan was hatched for Pearson to add the 100m to her racing schedule in Delhi.
“We haven’t put any real expectations on her, we just want her to run well,” Athletics Australia high performance manager Eric Hollingsworth told AAP on Tuesday.
"Obviously we’d be very silly to think she wouldn’t make it to the 100m final and assuming she does make it to the final we’ll take it from there.
"It was a joint decision, a really collaborative approach, with us speaking each day around how her training was going and things like that.
“We’re very comfortable with the decision and so is Sally.”
Pearson, 24, will join national champion Melissa Breen in the first round of the women’s 100m on Wednesday night at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium.
With the big-name Jamaicans absent, the Commonwealth gold medal race is wide-open in an event where Australia’s most recent medallist was Tania Van Heer, who claimed bronze in Kuala Lumpur 12 years ago.
Assuming that Pearson - who is the hottest of favourites in the 100m hurdles - advances to the final in both events, she will race five times in six days.
Although she has focused primarily on the hurdles in the last three years, Pearson is also an exceptional 100m sprinter, with her personal best of 11.14 seconds placing her second behind Melinda Gainsford-Taylor on the national alltime list.
She has also won the 100m-100m hurdles double four times at the Australian championships, most recently in 2009.
National champion Aaron Rouge-Serret will be Australia’s only entrant in the men’s 100m.
Collis Birmingham will lead a three-pronged challenge on Wednesday (0125 Thursday) in the 5000m final, the race where his former training partner Craig Mottram famously claimed silver four years ago in Melbourne.
Mottram’s recent return to form and fitness came too late for him to earn a place in the Delhi team, with Dave McNeill and Ben St Lawrence earning the other two slots.
Birmingham clocked a personal best of 13 minutes 10.97 seconds in Oregon in July, making him the second-fastest Australian ever over 5000m behind Mottram.
“Definitely the best way to come into a big meet like this is to be thinking medals and there’s definitely a good opportunity for me to medal,” said Birmingham.
"It’s been a bit of a funny year for me - I’ve run PBs over 1500, 3000m and 5000m, so as far as the times go it has been pretty good.
"There have also been a few occasions where I’ve gone into races and I haven’t been really race-ready and my results haven’t been what I would usually like.
“But it is all about the Commonwealth Games so hopefully it will come good on Wednesday.”
The men’s 5000m field is one of the strongest of the athletics program in Delhi, also featuring 2010 world rankings leader Eliud Kipchoge and fellow Kenyans Mark Kiptoo and Vincent Yator, Uganda’s Moses Ndiema Kipsiro and England’s 10,000m European championships silver medallist Chris Thompson.