#Glasgow2014: WA Athletes in Track and Field Action
WA had three track and field athletes in action overnight, with competitors in the 100m hurdles, high jump and 4x400m relay.
Without doubt the highest profile of the three was the women’s 100m hurdles, with Shannon McCann involved in a race that will take a place in Australian sporting folklore.
Mention lane eight, and Australian sports fans will tell you their memories of Kieren Perkins’ Atlanta 1996 triumph, raise Sydney 2000, and discussion will centre on a teenage Ian Thorpe and the queen of the 400m Cathy Freeman, but after an eventful week from Glasgow, the 2014 Commonwealth Games will be firmly encrypted in the grey matter of Australian sports minded people for the win of Sally Pearson in the 100m hurdles.
Pearson has struggled with fitness and form in 2014, but was thrown in the deep end by Australian head coach Eric Hollingsworth this week when he publicly criticised the Olympic champion and labelled her a bad role model for the Australian team.
Her response under intense scrutiny was to win in the only way she knows how. She blitzed out of the blocks, and after clearing the first hurdle cleanly, was never realistically rivalled. Pearson clocked 12.67 to retain her Commonwealth championship but more importantly send her own message, to anyone that doubted her, that when it comes to the serious business of winning, in Australian track and field, she is currently unrivalled.
Having run well in qualifying to finish second in her heat, WA’s Shannon McCann was unable to replicate her speed in the final, finishing eighth in a time of 13.60. Her success in navigating through to a final however, will hold her in good stead on her road towards qualification for a first Olympic Games in Rio.
High jumper Zoe Timmers was unable to make an impression on the pointy end of the women’s final, after missing three attempts at 1.82m to exit competition in equal 10th. Timmers did clear her opening height of 1.78m.
Gold in the high jump went to Australian 18 year-old wonder Eleanor Patterson, who cleared a season’s best 1.94m.
Commonwealth debutant Lyndsay Pekin ran a brilliant anchor leg in the women’s 4x400m relay to safely qualify the Australians through to Saturday evening’s final. Jamaica was in a class of its own, but Pekin ensured Australia would be the best of the rest in heat one, overtaking two competitors on the final bend to hand the Aussies an automatic qualifier and a shot at the medals on the penultimate day. And is the case with hurdles, anything can and will happen.