Toe problem forces Rawlinson out of Games

Source: Agencies  |   2008-7-10  |     NEWSPAPER EDITION

WORLD 400 meters hurdles champion Jana Rawlinson has been forced to withdraw from next month's Olympic Games team because of a long-standing toe injury, the Australian Olympic Committee said yesterday.

Rawlinson, who won her second world championship title last year in Japan just months after giving birth to her first child, returned to competition in Poland last week after the toe problem and subsequent surgery in January kept her out for nine months.

"The key to her Beijing chances would be how she pulled up from her Poland race and sadly she had been unable to train since she raced," the AOC said in a statement.

"The 25-year-old had been racing against time for several months and has now exhausted all possible options."

Rawlinson had earlier in the day been confirmed by the AOC in the athletics team and was probably the country's leading medal hope.

Her chances had appeared to improve greatly with news that Russia's world record holder Yulia Pechyonkina was suffering heart problems and likely to miss Beijing, while leading Americans Lashinda Demus and Christine Spence both missed out on the Games in their country's trials last week.

It is the second Olympic setback of Rawlinson's career.

She finished fifth at Athens after a knee injury hampered her final preparations, a year after winning her first world title in Paris.

"I'm very upset because the Olympic Games has always been a dream of mine, but I'm trying to remain positive and I'm looking beyond the Olympics to other challenges," she said.

Rawlinson said she had exhausted all medical options.

"I haven't been able to train for more than two days straight over the past 26 weeks, so I'm not arrogant enough to think that on that basis I'd be able to compete at the Olympics," she said.

"I can't remember the last time I was able to wake up in the morning first thing...without being in pain."