‘BIRDMAN’ WALKS THE WALK TO A GAMES TICKET
QUEENSLAND’S Rio Olympics bronze medallist Dane Bird-Smith booked a home city Commonwealth Games start by winning the national 20km walk in Adelaide yesterday.
Bird-Smith and NSW’s Beki Smith won the men’s and women’s race walking national titles, with Bird Smith the first Australian across the line in fifth place, behind Swedish winner Perseus Karlstrom (1hr 20min 30.50sec).
Bird-Smith made the distance despite suffering a cold and was glad to have made his Games selection a formality.
“I got off the plane on Friday crook as and I’ve just been trying to break the fever overnight,’’ he said.
“It’s one of those things where if you don’t race, you’re possibly out of contention for a Commonwealth Games so you’ve just got to push through with whatever you’ve got.
“I had just enough to scrape over as first Aussie, but it was a pretty shocking race. Looking back on it, it’s one of those things I’ll laugh about later but everything hurts.”
Bird-Smith, who lives on the Gold Coast, said he was looking forward to competing at a home Games in April.
“It’s going to be awesome,” he said.
“The form that I was in, I should be back down under the 1:20s but my muscles all cramped up on me. I’ll be able to show what I’m made of when the Commonwealth Games comes around.’’