There were two reasons to look forward to Jana Rawlinson’s gold medal winning performance in Beijing.
Firstly, if she was able to win graciously, it would complete her rehabilitation in the minds of those Australians who remember the petulant display of disappointed entitlement after injury ruled her out of the 2004 Athens Olympics.
And secondly, it would deliver on her promise on the biggest stage in world sport. Who doesn’t love a winner?
The Jana melodrama, in other words, would get its happy ending, ready-packaged with images of the beaming young mum with toddler in one hand and gold medal in the other.
Call it closure.
The news that she won’t be competing in Beijing has come as a mild shock to those with any interest in Rawlinson, athletics, or the Olympics. Feelings about it will swing between profound indifference, vague sympathy, and a sharp rush of shadenfreude.
If there’s any good news here it’s that Rawlinson is only 25 and, barring myriad possible disasters (including the emergence of a more gifted 200 metre hurdler or another untimely injury), she has another chance at glory in 2012.
The reward, should it arrive in four years, will be all the sweeter for the wait, both in her mind and ours.
But one of the cruelest realities of professional sport is that talent is only one ingredient of success. It doesn’t matter how superior you are to the competition or how compelling your physical gifts, unless you are on the track when the starter’s gun goes off the spoils of victory will be somebody else’s.
It is precisely this fact which defines some sporting careers (Mark Phillipoussis springs to mind), and has, arguably to this point, defined Rawlinson’s.
Rawlinson’s latest setback serves to highlight the difficulty of winning Olympic gold. Start with talent, then combine years of good management, careful planning, cutting edge training, persistence, sacrifice, and untold expense, and all you’ve given yourself is a chance. Then, when your day at the office finally arrives, you can’t have a bad one, and you must also counter any of your competitors having a once-in-a-lifetime moment.
There is a tomorrow, but it’s four years from now.
And then there are the unexpected dangers.
In Rawlinson’s case, that came in the form of a step, a stubbed toe, and six months after some seemingly prudent surgery, total biomechanical failure of her foot.
In spite of all that time, money, effort and dedication, the imagined magazine covers and Uncle Toby’s endorsements evaporate in an instant.
Most of us are born to watch the Olympics on television. A few are born to beam with pride at just competing there. Even fewer are born to win, but for whatever reason, don’t.
Which partly explains why we watch and worship the world’s best, and why they covet Olympic success – it’s very, very hard to be great at exactly the right moment.
After this latest setback, Jana knows that better than most.
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