Paul Burgess of Australia in Manchester's Commonwealth Games (© Getty Images)
Paul Burgess finds himself in the unfamiliar position of being hunted, while fellow pole vaulter Dmitri Markov is equally unused to playing the hunter coming into the first IAAF Grand Prix (GPII) of the new year in Melbourne, Australia on Thursday, 17 February.
Since he moved from Belarus following the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, Markov has been Australia's dominant vaulter.
He sealed his status with gold to become history's second highest vaulter with a leap of 6.05m at the 2001 Edmonton World Championships.
And all along, the 1996 Sydney World Junior champion Burgess watched in admiration, eventually joining Markov's squad when coach Alex Parnov moved to Perth.
Was there a changing of the guard then in Athens last year, when Markov missed the cut and Burgess reached his first Olympic final?
Around that time most considered Burgess was certainly knocking at the proverbial door to world class.
However after jumping 5.70m to qualify for the Athens final, he managed 5.55m for 11th in the final, equal with Germany's Tim Lobinger.
6m is the target for Burgess
Few could have then predicted Burgess, 25, would return to sleepy Perth where he would set the sky alight with consecutive competitions of 5.91m, 5.80m and last weekend 5.95m.
“I can't believe what's happening,” Burgess admitted yesterday. “Well, I can believe it because I know all the work I've done, all the technical and physical changes I've made, but it doesn't always happen like that.”
“In my case though it's true what they say: the harder I work, the luckier I get.”
He may still need a little luck in the Telstra A-series in Melbourne though after Markov sparked back into action with a towering clearance of 5.75m in the B-grade interclub final in Adelaide last weekend, winning by 60cm.
Whether Burgess - whose nickname is “Budgie” (after the colourful little Budgerigar parrot) - can fly high away from his west coast home is a question and a challenge he is determined to answer in Melbourne.
His best vault outside Perth is the 5.75m he cleared in Liege, Belgium, just before the Olympics, but that was only 2cm below what was then his personal best.
“I'm obviously looking for a PB and I'm aiming to jump a minimum of 5.80m, but I'm really looking for consistency. Then I think I'll have a better chance of jumping 5.90m or 5.95m,” Burgess contemplated.
In fact last weekend he nearly cleared 6.00m.
“I had a lot of height over it. I took off and when I came down I thought oh my God, I'm going to make it,” Burgess enthused, “and I didn't complete the jump.''
“I don't think I panicked. I just wasn't quite as aggressive as I should have been. It was my third attempt and I felt if I had another attempt I'd have made it that day.”
Burgess said the other event he was most looking forward to seeing in the Melbourne meet are the men's Long Jump, in which Tim Parravicini, 24, recently cleared a wind-legal 8.18m and last weekend a wind-assisted 8.20m to win the Queensland State title from 17-year-old Brisbane schoolboy Chris Noffke (7.90m, +2.9m/sec), among others.
Pittman to compete at 400m while fiancé Rawlinson lines up in 400m Hurdles
He, like the rest of Australia, is also keen to see what shape World 400m Hurdles titleholder Jana Pittman is in after training of late in Britain.
Pittman, 22, is now coached by her fiancé, England's Chris Rawlinson. Both won the 400m Hurdles at the last Commonwealth Games in Manchester in 2002.
He will run his parade event in Melbourne while Pittman - who admits to lacking sheer speed at the moment - will race the flat 400m mainly to show her support for athletics in Australia.
Australian sprint supremacy at stake in 100m
The most eagerly awaited track event though is the men's 100m which includes nine Australians who have run 10.3 or faster.
In the first Telstra A-series in Perth last month, national titleholder Josh Ross ran a personal best 10.12 to top the Australian rankings from Daniel Batman (10.19) and Nigeria's Ambrose Ezenwa (10.22) who applied for Australian citizenship last week.
With former national record holder (at 10.03) Matt Shirvington and current record holder (at 9.93) Patrick Johnson regrouping from illness and injury a fully fit Australian team appears to be building toward a 4x100m medal challenge in Helsinki in August.
The 100 field includes Kareem Streete-Thompson (CAY) and Nigeria's World Cup champion Uchenna Emedolou, whose program has been written of late by Sydney's Paul Hallam, coach of Batman and Ezenwa.
Benita Johnson at 5000m and sister in action in 800m
Apart from Jana Pittman, the women's 400m field includes outstanding Jamaicans Sandie Richards and Novlene Williams, seven-times Australian 800m title winner Tamsyn Lewis and an interesting newcomer, Caitlin Willis.
Winner of the Queensland State 400m (by three seconds in 53.36) and the 800m titles last weekend, Willis is a younger sister of the World Cross Country champion Benita Johnson.
After victories in five great races in Europe and Britain, Johnson has returned to Melbourne to race over 5000m against Susie Power, Haley McGregor, Anna Thompson, Kerryn McCann and former triathlon World champion Jackie Fairweather who is married to Sydney 2000 Olympic archery gold medallist Simon Fairweather.
Britain's former World Indoor champion Marlon Devonish takes on Ezenwa (20.49 recently) and Batman over 200m, while at 400m Jamaicans Michael Blackwood and Michael McDonald line up against Australia's “silver bullets” - Athens Olympic 4x400m runners-up Pat Dwyer, Mark Ormrod, John Steffensen with 10.3/46.6 Perth teenager Ben Offereins hoping to make an impression.
Craig Mottram, a new member of the sub-13 club, goes around at 5000m in the company of Tanzanians Patrick Nyangelo and Samwel Mwera, while Kenyans Michael Rotich and Justus Koech will take on race-hardened locals over 800m, including Queensland's Werner Botha and NSW champion Nick Bromley.
Mike Hurst (Daily and Sunday Telegraph, Australia) and IAAF
