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Champion athlete Jana Rawlinson has now set her sights on the London 2012 Olympics after a toe injury forced her to pull out of next month’s Beijing Games.
The two-time 400m hurdles world champion says she had no choice but to end her Beijing dream.
The latest setback comes four years after her Athens Olympic campaign was cruelled by a knee injury suffered two weeks before the 2004 Games – when she was also the hot gold medal favourite.
On that occasion, Rawlinson made a remarkable recovery and finished fifth in the Olympic final behind Greek hurdler Fani Halkia.
“This year has been a bit up and down when it comes to injury. We raced in Poland last week and I suffered a small calf tear leading into that race,” she said in an interview from Britain replayed on the Nine Network this morning.
“It’s basically been a year where we’ve tried to band-aid me back together and at this stage I’m struggling to put my spikes on.
“We’ve gone down the last four days to the track to see if we could sort of run in a straight line and it’s really not happening.
“I’ve just been advised the best thing to do for my career would be to try and reconsolidate, take three months off.”
She said the decision was the only one she could make, but did not signal the end of her career.
“This decision about my athletics career was the hardest decision I’ve ever made to pull out of the Olympics, especially when I have unfinished business with Athens, and now Beijing,” she said.
“But I really know I will be strong and ready – mentally and physically – when it comes to London.
“This is definitely not the end of us, we will come back so much stronger.”
Rawlinson’s manager Rob Woodhouse told the Seven Network that the 25-year-old is used to dealing with the highs and lows associated with top level sport.
“Obviously she’s pretty devastated, but she’s actually handling it really, really well,” he said.
“Maybe one positive is it has been a long time coming. Her and her husband Chris, who’s also her coach, have known for about 10 weeks that there’s a chance she may not be getting to Beijing. It’s not as if this is an overnight thing.
“Everyone feels for her, she’s devastated but she’s putting on a pretty brave face.
“She’s already talking about getting her health right, getting her fitness right and then next year talking about the World Championships and beyond.
“I guess she’s still building towards her peak. Now it’s all going to be (about) London and the years leading up to that.”
Rawlinson’s manager James Ward said her decision to pull out followed a race in Poland last week where she ran her second slowest time in the 400m hurdles.
“It’s been a pretty long and tough period for her, culminating on last week in Poland where she competed and ran… a pretty slow time,” he told ABC Radio.
“(She) hasn’t been able to recover since then and hasn’t been able to train.”
However, Ward said she had considered pulling out as far back as January due to injury.
“It (pulling out) has been something which has been (on the) very top of mind for her…since January.”
Ward said despite having a physiotherapist live-in with her for the past month Rawlinson had not been able to recover from her injuries.
He said she would recover, it was just a matter of time.
“She will get better but that will take some time and it certainly won’t be in time for the games.”
Ward said Rawlinson’s Olympics dreams were not over and she was optimistic about competing in the world championships next year.
“This (Olympics) is what she trains for, and this is what she has been aiming for, she’s devastated but she’s a fighter and she has already started talking about world championships next year.