SALLY’S JUGGLE
PEARSON SAYS SHE CAN DO IT ALL
FIT-AGAIN Sally Pearson is confident she can manage the delicate balancing act of peaking twice in 10 months as she chases yet more world championships and Olympic glory.
The Gold Coast hurdling superstar is now back training three days a week, having fully recovered from the achilles injury that cruelled her home Commonwealth Games campaign in April.
The self-coached Pearson is yet to set a target date for her return to competition, although she hopes it will be some time during the Australian
domestic season. In one way the pressure is off because she is guaranteed a start at the October 2019 world titles in Doha as the defending 100m hurdles champion.
From there it’s just 10 months to the 2020 Tokyo
Games beginning in late July, where Pearson could become just the second Australian after fellow sprint hurdler Shirley Strickland to win the same Olympic athletics event twice.
“I know that we’re planning for the world championships next year and that’s really important for our sport and really important to me because I love the world championships and have had quite a lot of success there,” said Pearson, who won world titles in 2011 and 2017 and was second in 2013.
“But the Olympics are the ultimate – everyone wants to win those and everyone wants to get that Olympic cycle right.
“So everything I do now is planning for the Olympics – with a side run at the world championships.
“Because they are so close together, there won’t be a lot of down-time between Doha and Tokyo.
“Now that I have that experience of what my body can and can’t do, I’ll make sure I do everything I possibly can to back up from Doha going into Tokyo in the best possible shape.”
Just a month from her 32nd birthday, Pearson will race more sparingly in the next couple of years to save her best for the major meets.
“But I can’t stay away for too long,” she said yesterday at the launch of the 2018-19 Australian summer season.
“I love to compete so it was never going to be a motivation problem.”