This is not how Sally Pearson used to run. This is how Sally Pearson has had to learn to race.
The ‘'angry white girl'' to her rivals was never beaten. Not then. The gun cracked, Sally hit the first hurdle already with a break on the field. Snap. She hit the next in front, too. Snap. By the time she hit the fourth hurdle the race was over. No one would get near her.
Sally snapped out hurdles like drummers rap snare drums. She beat a drum to the line and claimed the gold.
But not now. Her body hasn’t allowed it to be like that for two years.
Which is not to say it will not be again, but not since she did a hamstring badly last year – then did it not-quite-as-badly this year – has she stood on the blocks with that imperious knowledge she had when she was at her peak that no one would get close to her. Don’t hit a hurdle. Win.
For two years she has been running as an athlete scrambling against time to get close to her physical peak. Her body has been her biggest obstacle, forcing her to run in the hope that she was fit enough. It is the same this year.
“I know what shape I am in and what I can produce and I hope that is enough. It is hard with hurdles but between 12.6 seconds or 12.7 seconds could possibly win it. I am hoping that because that is what shape I am in,” she said this week ahead of the Glasgow Commonwealth Games.
“It is about who is the most competitive athlete on the day and I think I definitely have those qualities to produce the win.”
In Lucerne a fortnight ago, Pearson ran and beat Brianna Rollins, the American who had defeated her at the world championships last year. She might have come away encouraged to have beaten a bona fide rival. She didn’t. She came away dejected.
She was not quick enough. Everything about the meet was a mess and she got nothing out of it. It was a waste.
Things changed in London. If sport is about belief as much as physical ability, this was the penny-drop moment for her that she could yet win gold.
She ran in the Mall in front of the Queen’s house and came third. She was behind Rollins and behind Briton Tiffany Porter whom she will face in Glasgow. But she came away feeling better than she did before. She came away with belief.
“She looked around at the hotel and there is Aries Merritt, Olympic champion and world record holder, coming back from injury, Allyson Felix injured and coming back, Shelley-Ann Fraser-Pryce injured and coming back and she realised I am not alone, this is what happens,” said Maurie Plant, a friend and commentator.
“Then she looks at Yohan Blake, injured for two years. Mo Farah had the best two years of any athlete and he has had to pull out. [Usain] Bolt has been injured and had surgery.” These are her peers.
Change has been subtle but significant. These are the first championships she has competed in without her long-term coach Sharon Hannan. The pair split after Moscow, Pearson believing she needed a fresh voice.
So when Pearson came home behind Porter and Rollins she was smiling when she crossed the line. Why? Because she was fast again. Porter was quicker that day but significantly for Pearson she had seen her own time continue to drop and she felt she could get there in time. She had shaved a few of the last hurdles costing her time, but that was a subtle technical change she could fix. The key was her start was blistering.
“I crossed that finish line with a smile on my face because I knew that race was a lot better than what I had done in my previous races and I knew from then on I had a chance to win this Commonwealth Games,” she said.
“Tiffany’s times are going up and down so her times were definitely down the other day whereas my times are constantly coming down all season so that is the edge I have over her that I am consistently dropping my times and hopefully by then my times will dramatically drop and cross that finish line with gold medal.”
Competing in London made all the difference. She needed racing and to see her time come down. Frustratingly, then she had to deal with the bloody mindedness of her own sport which had decided to fine her because she competed in London and skipped the team camp in Newcastle. It was a matronly, doctrinaire approach that only aggravated Australia’s best athlete. Pearson will hold her counsel until after the games but has made clear her dissatisfaction.
Pearson should have been beginning her campaign on the track on Sunday but will now hold herself for the hurdles. That she dropped the sprint was no surprise. As she indicated in the Athletics Australia sideshow over funding, she didn’t need another distraction. And the sprint would have been another distraction.
She is not back to her peak but she is getting close. But she has that belief back. It might be enough.
