Hooker still hopeful

(Tuesday, 18 August 2009)

Olympic pole vault champion Steve Hooker rates himself a 60% chance of overcoming his adductor injury and taking to the runway at this week’s world championships in Berlin.

Hooker, who injured his adductor ten days ago at the Australian team training camp in Cologne, has been receiving intensive treatment on the injury, and will make a decision right before the qualifying round on Thursday morning.

“The situation is moving forward as well as it possibly could. I’m making progress every day. I’ve had the course of injections that I was going to have, so it’s going as well as it can. It’s probably better odds than I gave myself before I arrived in Berlin. It was really 50-50 then, but now I’ve moved up to 60-40.”

Hooker said despite desperately wanting compete he had to consider his long term future.

“Potentially any time you can re-aggravate injuries. I really want to compete, especially after last night being in the stadium and feeling the atmosphere. Emotionally I really want to compete but I’ve got to make the smart decision for the long term.”

“I want to be able to jump for a long time for Australia and if I feel like I’m going to go out there and tear my adductor off I’m not going to do that.

“It’s going to be a last minute decision as to whether I jump or not. I’m not going to make that decision today or tomorrow. I’m just going to do everything I can to try and get myself to the line.”

Hooker has been out to the training track and the gym between physio sessions doing gentle run throughs and gymnastics, however he won’t attempt jumping until Thursday morning.

Despite the frustration of the injury, Hooker has been focusing on the strategy that will hopefully get him out of the qualification rounds if he does start. The automatic qualifying mark is 5.75m.

“I definitely won’t be doing any jumping prior to Thursday morning but we’ll see what happens when I get out there, what strategies I’m going to have for the competition if I do jump. In the qualifying round I’ll probably just try and get one jump out.”

It’s de ja vu for Alex Parnov, the master pole vault coach who took Dimitri Markov to gold at the 2001 world championships in Edmonton after he overcame a serious injury on the eve of the world titles.

“Alex has a long history of athletes injured before majors who managed to get it together and jump well. I’m not going to lose any form in that last ten days or whatever so if I can get out there and jump I’ll still be in the shape I was in before the injury. I know if I get out there and I’m in good enough shape I’m sure I’ll jump well.”

With thanks to Athletics Australia.