Flag or no flag, she’s still our star

EVEN if she had been from Goulburn or Geelong, Sally Pearson would have been the best choice to lead Australia into the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.

That she has lived for most her life a few kilometres from Carrara Stadium made selecting Pearson as Australia’s flag bearer at tomorrow night’s opening ceremony an almost irresistible choice.

The decision to hand the honour to Hockeyroos skipper Mark Knowles now surely increases the expectations Pearson will be offered a major role in the opening ceremony.

To champion Pearson in this instance is not to detract from the qualities of fellow Queenslander Knowles, whose accomplishments in hockey stretch back to an Olympic gold in 2004.

One of the qualities team bosses wanted was for their leader of the 472-member troop to have had a feel for the Commonwealth Games.

Knowles and Pearson are both about to start a fourth Commonwealth Games, having both won a medal at the previous three.

Pearson professed in February a willingness to undertake whatever role at her home-city Games she was asked.

Pearson said on Saturday that she hoped Australians would take the chance to have a good look at her sport during the Games, for the betterment of athletics in this country.

It was something not a lot of me-first sportspeople would think to say.