Given the scarcity of gold medal-winning feats in Olympic athletic events by Australians, you’d think Sally Pearson has earned the right to do what she pleases.
Combined with the fact she comes across as an affable, self-deprecating champion, Pearson has become of Australia’s elite and most respected sportspeople.
Yet the events surrounding her Commonwealth Games appearance this week are casting her in a slightly different light.
Whatever you think about Athletics Australia’s decision to fine her and teammates for apparent non-attendance as required – and yes, it seems a petty and meaningless decision – the aftermath has been unedifying for all concerned.
It now emerges that Pearson is not on speaking terms with the head coach and probably not the high-performance coach either, as a result.
No one comes out of this looking good, not even if Pearson wins gold, but it does pose the question – can Sally Pearson expect to be treated differently to others because of her achievements?
There’s a substantial enough groundswell of support to suggest the answer is an overwhelming yes. And yet it is illustrative that Pearson’s current situation comes at the same time as Robbie Farah finding himself in the spotlight in the NRL for roughly similar reasons.
Like Pearson, Farah is – consciously or not – perceived to be above his teammates and no longer answerable to higher authorities on the team. The narrative to this is that it is an expected byproduct of being the ‘best’ performer on the team.
Farah, though, has copped a barrage of criticism from all sectors for his stance, including a rather severe serve from the Daily Telegraph‘s Phil Rothfield.
It’s fascinating to see how Pearson can act the prima donna and be lauded for it, on the basis of her record of success.
The inference here is that you can make a stand, single yourself out from your team (notwithstanding that athletics is an individual sport, Pearson is in Glasgow as part of a team) and position yourself to not be bound by team requirements, and be congratulated for it, so long as you are ‘good enough’ at what you do.
But as Robbie Farah is finding out, ‘standing out’ is a slippery slope and Sally Pearson might want to exercise a bit of caution lest she go too far down that particular track.
It only takes one failure for the tide of public sentiment to start to turn.
Youngy
Guest
Sally a prima donna? What, for pursuing a program designed to achieve maximum condition to defend her title? Sally Pearson has earned the right to control her destiny. AA's High Performance team need to support her & back her in. Let's have no illusions about what Sally has to deal with in terms of the Head Coach, Eric Hollingsworth. There have been several instances where Eric's heavy handed approach has caused issues with athletes. He argues he is aggressive in his approach because he reckons the athletes need to be toughened up. But, seriously, these athletes are already pretty tough. There’s little money in athletics, so the athletes generally have to make it on their own, sometimes for many years, until they get to the stage where they reach the performance level that warrants Eric’s attention. It’s ridiculous to suggest they need to be toughened up by the HP manager. That’s the role of the athlete’s personal coach and the athlete concerned. The HP manager’s role is to provide the infrastructure and support so the athlete can reach their potential. As Nicole Jeffery has written in today’s Australian, Hollingsworth was working closely with Pearson and her new and inexperienced coach Anthony Drinkwater-Newman as she defended the World Indoors 60m hurdles title. Pearson ran 2nd and had a heated exchange with Hollingsworth soon after. As Hollingsworth put it in his now infamous statement this week, Pearson “took exception’’ to his evaluation of her performance. “I asked legitimate questions of her after the race, and she didn’t like the line I was taking,’’ he said. Oh Really? Eric thinks it’s OK to questions of an Olympic, World and Commonwealth Games champion on a performance where she won a silver medal in a world level event? Eric appears to be under some delusion that once an athlete get to the elite level, thy should feel privileged to be under his control. The problem for Eric is that he has ridden on the coat tails of Sally Pearson, Steve Hooker and a few other world level medallists. They are his meal ticket. Without international superstars like Pearson, he would be out of a job. He forgets he isn’t responsible for discovering nor coaching them to the elite level so he can have the privilege of working with them. When Eric Hollingsworth tried to shine the blow torch on Sally Pearson, Sally responded by sticking up a mirror which has reflected a more massive light on Hollingsworth. Eric finally took one too many bites from the hand that feeds him.
ChrisT
Guest
Seems strange to me. As the author noted, Sally puts herself across as self deprecating and affable in interviews. Australian media works overtime to paint simple Sal, the darling of Australian athletics. There is no doubting the single minded dedication and bloody hard work she has put in. But am I the only one who isn't buying the PR from either of them? Is it because they both seem to be trying just a little too hard? I know we have to love Sal because, well, she's a winner and we all have to love a winner, Australia insists on it - but do we really? Is it perhaps because we suspect the selfishness practically demanded of an athlete like Pearson to climb the heap? Do we love honesty just a bit more?
HarryT
Guest
Robbie Farah isn't even the best player in his team, whereas Sally Pearson is the best hurdler in the world. Apples with apples please. Robbie Farah earns close to $1 mill., whereas Australia's fastest ever sprinter (Melissa Breen) had the standard funding of, wait for it, $11K, withdrawn by the muppets at AA. Once again apples with apples. Injury and a new coach have hampered Sally's results recently, but surely it is she who knows what is best to do to get back in top form. And to Sally, top form is imperative to attract much needed sponsors, as $11K doesn't go very far these days. Lastly, Sally, her long time coach, Sharon Hannan, and the QIS, developed an almost perfect hurdling technique that combined with an amazing work ethic, was able to reduce her personal best by 1.14 seconds over ten years. Whereas Sally's main rival miraculously improved her P.B. by 0.5 second in her first year of US college, in spite of a poor technique. If Farah was to perform badly for the rest of the year the Tigers would move him along to another club where he would maintain his $1 mill income. If Sally drops to say #5 in the world she is doing shifts at McDonalds to pay for the petrol to training, so tell me who is the prima donna here.