Jana wants less drama, more fun

She has reached the lofty heights of two world championships in the 400 metres hurdles. But after enduring a shattering end to her Olympic dream, Jana Rawlinson just wants to fall back in love with racing.

Rawlinson’s heart was set on winning Olympic gold in Beijing after knee surgery ruined her Athens campaign but she was forced to abandon her dream because of chronic injury.

She admitted the pressure of being Australia’s No.1 athlete had taken a toll.

“For the last three or four years it’s always been about winning gold medals at world championships and I want to come back and say: `Why does Jana Rawlinson do what I do?’ she said.

“It’s because I love to run at the track, it’s because I love to get out there with the kids. I just really want to be involved at the base level again.

“Just to hear the start gun - I heard it once this whole year and I’m sick of sitting out and watching everybody else enjoy their athletics and make a national team.

“I just want to love what I do again … and not be dictated to whether you win a race or run a quick time.

“I can’t remember the last time when I actually really enjoyed a race.”

Rawlinson said although she tried to put on a brave face while she watched the Beijing Games roll past, she said it was the “most horrific thing” she has had to go through.

After undergoing a minor operation to remove loose cartilage from her toe on her right foot in January, Rawlinson hurt her right Achilles tendon and then snapped her left plantar fascia - the band on the bottom of her foot.

Her injuries were the result of a change in stride pattern after toe surgery, with Rawlinson saying she could only manage to land 70 per cent of her foot on the ground, which meant one stride differed to another by 20 cm.

The ordeal prompted Rawlinson to pack up her family from Sydney and move to Canberra’s Australian Institute of Sport.

Rawlinson said she required regular hands-on attention and believed living on the doorstep of the country’s best sports medicine facilities and physicians would give her the best chance of remaining injury free ahead of the London Games in 2012.

“It was simply the fact I had not enough biomechanical feedback, recovery-wise straight after surgery,” Rawlinson said.

“We need a monitoring system in place to stop this happening again.
“It’s just ridiculous that someone at a top level could let themselves go by the wayside and just didn’t follow a full plan of recovery because I was so eager to get to the Games rather than take the time when it was needed.

“So therefore, I need very very close guidance when it comes to preparation in the future.”

Rawlinson said her relocation to the nation’s capital would also cut down the amount of distractions she would have encountered had she remained in Sydney.

“I had a lot bigger social life in Sydney, now it’s going to be more about `come on let’s dedicate this for four years,’” she said.

“Realistically I’ve got one maybe two shots left and I don’t want to go through the rest of my life thinking what if, if I had have decided to stay in Sydney and take the easier life.”

“I’m a big believer in fate. Everything fits very well in what I believe is necessary to finally come home with a medal in London.”

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