Sally Pearson out of Rio Olympics
Australia’s Olympic champion hurdler Sally Pearson has torn a hamstring and won’t compete at the Rio Games.
Pearson, the defending Olympic 100m hurdles champion, suffered the injury while training on the Gold Coast.
The 29-year-old will hold a media conference tomorrow in Queensland after news surfaced today of her latest injury.
Pearson’s manager Robert Joske and Athletics Australia today refused to comment but it’s believed the hurdler suffered the injury last weekend in training.
Pearson had returned to her Gold Coast base after struggling in comeback races in Europe earlier this month when competing after a year-long absence because of a broken wrist.
She was to have been the Australian track and field captain at the Rio Games which start on August 5.
The hurdler returned to Australia in a bid to find form and fitness after three sub-standard races in Europe.
The races were Pearson’s comeback from a broken wrist and a torn calf muscle sustained in fall in a race in June last year.
“I was a little disappointed with my results and also disappointed that my body was letting me down a little,” Pearson wrote on her website on June 18.
“This has been a big year, broken bones, torn calf, degenerative Achilles and hammy problems … sometimes I wonder why I still continue to do this sport.
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“What brings athletes back even after we get pushed down time and time again from disappointment? For me, it’s the excitement, the fun and the pure determination that I can overcome the setbacks and still deliver my best.”
Pearson won gold in her pet 100m hurdles event at the 2012 London Olympics, four years after winning silver at the Beijing Games.
The Queensland-based athlete was also 2011 world champion and a dual Commonwealth Games gold medallist in the event.
-AAP
