Ranking: A Column By Len Johnson

So many honours have been heaped upon Steve Hooker for his exploits in 2009 that a significant one almost slipped by unnoticed.

Track & Field News ranked the Olympic and world champion pole vaulter fifth male athlete of the year, the first Australian to gain such a ranking since Jana Rawlinson was ranked tenth in 2003, the year she won her first world championships gold medal in the 400 metres hurdles, and the first male Australian since Robert de Castella was ranked sixth in his world championships marathon year of 1983.

Usain Bolt was voted 2009 male Athlete of the Year, followed by Kenenisa Bekele, Tyson Gay, LaShawn Merritt and then Hooker.

Each year, in addition to its event rankings, the American magazine assembles a panel of international experts to vote on the male and female athletes of the year across all events. The panellists vote on a 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 basis and the athlete of the year is decided on the aggregate.

Not surprisingly, a top-10 AOY finish is an honour that has eluded all but a handful of Australians. As a small nation, Australia doesn’t provide a huge number of Olympic and world champions which, three years out of four, is pretty much a minimum requirement for AOY candidates.

Nor does the lifespan of the award help. The men’s Athlete of the Year was inaugurated in 1959, the women’s in 1977, so the stars of Australia’s golden years in the 1950s and 1960s _ Marjorie Jackson, John Landy, Shirley Strickland, Betty Cuthbert, Herb Elliott _ never had the chance to win it.

Ironically, the only Australian to have been voted Athlete of the Year failed to win an Olympic gold medal. That would be Ron Clarke, whose amazing record-breaking year of 1965 saw him acclaimed male athete of the year. Clarke pretty well lived in the top 10 throughout his international career _ he was fifth in both 1966 and 1967, and equal ninth in 1968.

The only other Australian male top-10, Kerry O’Brien, also failed to win an Olympic gold medal. Like Clarke, however, that failure (in 1968, at least) was attributed largely to the high altitude of Mexico City. O’Brien was ranked third in the AOY poll in 1970, the year in which he set a world record in the 3000 metres steeplechase in Berlin; he was ranked number one in the steeple and sixth in the 5000 metres.

Deek’s appearance in the overall top 10 came the year he won the world championships marathon. He also won that year’s Rotterdam marathon, defeating Carlos Lopes in a head-to-head duel over the last five kilometres, and pushing Alberto Salazar back to fifth. You also have to wonder whether de Castella may have ranked in the top 10 in 1981 had he got the immediate credit for breaking Derek Clayton’s world marathon record in Fukuoka. Instead, Salazar “beat” him to the mark on a New York course which turned out to be just under 150 metres short.

In the shorter history of the women’s AOY only three Australians have made top 10. First, and most prolific, is Cathy Freeman, who was voted fourth overall in 1997, the year of her first world championship gold medal in the 400, seventh in 1999 (when she retained the title), and third in 2000, when she won at the Sydney Olympic Games and made the final in the 200.

More surprisingly, Emma George was ranked 10^th overall in 1997. The pioneer star of the women’s pole vault, George set two world records that year. Not that they counted in 1997 considerations, but George set plenty either side of that year too.

Finally, Jana Rawlinson (then Jana Pittman), earned a top 10 ranking in 2003, the year she became the youngest woman to win a 400 metres hurdles world title, defeating world record holder Yuliya Pechonkina in Paris. Rawlinson also ranked in the 400 that year, via a personal when she handed Freeman her first defeat in over 40 races. (Note: Rawlinson was originally voted number 11, but has subsequently been elevated by the BALCO-related disqualification of American sprinter Kelli White.)

Clarke, O’Brien, de Castella, Freeman, George and Pittman _ Steve Hooker is joining an illustrious band. Of course, with Freeman, he belongs to an even more exclusive club: Australians to have won both an Olympic and world championships gold medal.