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Performances : By Len Johnson
When Steve Hooker produced that epic clearance at 5.90 metres with just his second jump of the world championships final, defying an injured adductor muscle to claim the gold medal, it started me thinking.
My first thought was that this was the greatest ‘clutch’ performance in Australian athletic history. Under pressure from within and without _his ‘one jump for the win’ strategy was predicated on the fact that Hooker did not know if his body had two jumps in it; Romain Mesnil had cleared 5.85 to place one hand on the gold medal _ Steve Hooker summoned all his mental strength, marshalled what remained of his physical strength and cleared 5.90 on his one and, as far as anyone knew, only attempt.
It doesn’t get much tougher. Others have defied great pressure to produce a big performance when it counted. What about Yelena Isinbayeva twice gambling to go up a height before her gold medal winning clearance in Athens 2004? Others have done it injured. Dmitri Markov, a sometime teammate of Hooker’s, badly stubbed his toe the night of the qualifying competition in Edmonton in 2001 but came through to win the final with a massive 6.05 clearance.
Isinbayeva dealt mainly with mental pressure _ she was fully fit. Markov was injured, sure, but jumps at earlier heights had reassured him that his foot would hold up through the competition. Hooker had a known and an unknown to contend with: he knew he had to clear the height, but did not know if his leg would allow him to jump.
So, I wondered, had there been a greater Australian performance to win a world or Olympic gold medal. Markov came immediately to mind but, for the reasons outlined above, I rate Hooker’s performance above his.
Let’s broaden the search a little. The field of gold medallists who have defied physical injury to win is understandably limited. Even minor injuries usually have the major consequence of not allowing an athlete to perform at their best. Jana Rawlinson, for example, showed amazing recuperative powers to compete in the Athens Olympics a little over a fortnight after arthroscopic knee surgery, but finished fifth in an event she might otherwise have won.
What if we adopt criteria more in keeping with Track & Field News’ performance of the year? The US magazine’s annual merit rankings are as objective as they can be and widely respected, but they also have a more subjective vote for a performance of the year. The POY allows for personal interpretation _ one quirky choice last year was Tsegaye Kebede’s 14:17 5k split between 30 and 35k in the Fukuoka marathon, which not only blew the race right open (in his favour) but also was the fastest known in marathon history.
So which Australian performance might compare to Steve Hooker’s? To my mind it has to be a winning performance, ruling out John Landy’s bronze medal in the 1956 Olympic 1500 metres, Steve Moneghetti’s bronze in the 1997 world championships marathon or Jai Taurima’s dramatic silver medal in the Sydney 2000 long jump. Craig Mottram’s bronze medal in the 5000 at the 2005 world championships in Helsinki goes out too.
And it has to have an element of surprise, which excludes Herb Elliott’s great Olympic 1500 victory in Rome. Cathy Freeman’s win in the 400 in Sydney goes out, too, despite the obvious external pressures, as does her second world championships in Seville. Sadly, Rob de Castella’s marathon win in the first world championships also bites the dust.
They also have to be world or Olympic gold medals, which rules out other favourites such as Kerryn McCann’s Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth marathon and, with the greatest reluctance, Benita Willis’s world cross-country win in 2004.
My list would begin with Shirley Strickland’s gold medal in the 80 metres hurdles at the Melbourne Olympics. Sure she was defending champion, but 31 years old and a mother to boot she was supposedly washed up.
Top of my list pre-Hooker would have been Ralph Doubell’s 800 gold medal at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. We knew Doubell was good, but not this good _ a gold medal at high altitude, an equal world record. Maureen Caird’s gold in the 80 metres hurdles at the same Games, beating more-fancied teammate Pam Ryan and the tough German hurdlers, is another for consideration.
Freeman’s Sydney and Seville gold medals might have been won as favourite, but her first, in Athens in 1997, was certainly against the odds after a season during which she struggled with tumultuous upheavals in her personal life. Markov in 2001 I’ve already mentioned, but what about Jana Pittman’s first 400 metres hurdles gold at the 2003 Paris world championships and Nathan Deakes’ win in the 50km road walk in Osaka. Tamsyn Lewis’s 800 gold medal in the 2008 world indoor championships comes to mind, too.
My list is not intended to be comprehensive. Feel free to add your own preferences or modify the criteria.
By any measure, however, it’s hard to go past Steve Hooker in Berlin.
Len Johnson was The Melbourne Age athletics writer for over 20 years, covering five Olympics, 10 world championships and five Commonwealth Games. He is the author of The Landy Era, From Nowhere to the Top of the World, and a former national class distance runner (2.19.32 marathon) who trained with Chris Wardlaw and Robert de Castella.
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