Olympic Gold within Hooker's reach

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http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/stor ... 98,00.html

Gold within his reach
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DAMIAN BARRETT
April 02, 2008 01:00am
STEVE Hooker is not being arrogant, nor getting ahead of himself, when he says the pole vault gold medal could be his in Beijing.

Recent performances allow him the right to dream big.

There was a 6m jump in Perth at the start of the year. Only 14 other men have achieved that height in the history of the sport.

There was a great leap of 5.82m in difficult conditions at the World Athletics Tour event at Melbourne's Olympic Park in February.

Then came a third placing in the world indoor championships in Valencia in early March.

With even small luck, that bronze could have been gold as the 25-year-old led the field for most of the night and made just the slightest graze on the bar when attempting 5.90m.

"And even then, I thought it was going to stay up!" Hooker said. "You move on, though, and what the indoors did for me was give me a really good trial run for Beijing.

"There were a lot of challenges there and I felt I met them. In the end, I feel confident in saying that I put it together at a major, which is very important to me.

"There's not a lot I need to fix now and that is a situation I haven't been in before. I'm really happy where I am at, never been like this, and now I just want to stay healthy and get over to Europe in one piece."

Hooker, from Melbourne, is Perth-based for most of the year because his coach, the revered Alex Parnov, resides there. In mid-June, he will head to New York, then travel to Europe and compete in the major track and field meets throughout July.

"It's all about getting the competitions in now and there will be good quality athletes to compete against,' Hooker said.

Hooker won the gold medal at the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games. In the same year, he also won at the prestigious World Cup.

His efforts, though, in two outdoor world championships and the 2004 Athens Olympics have been lacklustre. But his success at the world indoor championships, added to his fit body and free mind, has him confident of a big performance in Beijing.

"I feel I am strong enough and fast enough and that I am jumping well enough to think that if it is my day I will go to the Olympics and have as good a chance as anyone," Hooker said.