Hooker Suffers Bittersweet 24 Hours
WAIS pole vault star Steve Hooker has experienced the highs and lows of life as an elite athlete over the past 24 hours, with him being named as Captain of the Australian athletics team before being advised he is only a 50-50 chance of competing at the World Championships.
With the Australian team for the Worlds in camp in Berlin the Olympic champion started his day with the announcement that he would be the first Captain of an Australian athletics team at a World Championships, reprising his role from Beijing last year.
The excitement of that appointment and the confirmation of the new nickname for the Australian team, the Australian Flame, was then tempered later in the day by the confirmation that Hooker had suffered an adductor tear in training.
“I was training on Monday night and did a take off and felt something in my adductor. I felt nothing in it prior to the incident. I actually felt physically as good as I have felt in a very very long time and was running really well,” the WAIS athlete said.
“The injury took place ten days before qualifying so I guess at this point I am a 50/50 (percent chance) at best of competing. We are going to do whatever we can to treat it aggressively and get me in as good of a position as we can before the qualifying round.
“It’s a bit disappointing. I guess it’s just a bit of bad luck.”
The 27-year old has just over a week to get himself fit, with the qualifying for the men’s pole vault scheduled for Thursday the 20th of August. In that time he will undergo intensive treatment from Australian team medical staff uner the watchful eye of WAIS pole vault coach Alex Parnov.
“It is sort of going to be a day by day process to figure out where we are at,” Hooker said.
“I am getting a series of injections over this week and I definitely won’t be doing any pole vaulting before the qualifying to test it out. If it comes down to it, the first time I will be jumping will be in the qualifying.
“It might be a minute before the calling (before I make my final decision).
“For me, it’s the risk of greater injury that is the concern. If I can go out there with a level of confidence that I am not going to make the injury worse, then I will go out there and jump.”
The Olympic record holder’s appointment as the first Captain of the Flame will provide a welcome distraction from the injury, offering Hooker the chance to support his teammates, including fellow WAIS athletes Kim Mickle, Jody Henry and Ben Offereins, during the start of competition in Berlin.
“For me, (the team captaincy) gives me something else to focus on. I can try to help the other guys compete as well as they can, give them advice and try and lead them in a way I wouldn’t have been able to if I was 100% focused on my competition. In that sense, it is an opportunity and something positive for me to focus on.
“Until the moment, if it eventuates, that I withdraw, I am going to think that I am going out there and compete. That’s the mentality I have to have if I am going to go out there and have any chance of being competitive.”