Sally Pearson ready to go

The 25-year-old is competing in her first European competition this season at the upcoming Bislett Games on Thursday and despite her long travel she seems to have her mind set on the one thing that counts: Doing the best she can. “I am still in a daze and can’t think straight right now”, she joked during the press conference. “But of course I want to do the best I can on Thursday. I will have a small warm-up training session today to get a bit more comfortable with the venue and I’ll see how that goes.”

She ran a 12.49s beginning of March back home in Australia and coming out of the recent training sessions Sally is willing to repeat that time. “Of course it’s hard to really set the goals. I don’t know the track and weather conditions here but based on my training experiences I’d go for a 12.4 time.”

The 12.21s World Record in the 100m hurdles dates all the way back to 1988 and if it would be up to Pearson this summer is the time to challenge that record: “It’s definitively time to beat it!”, she stated with a big smile on her face. The IAAF Athlete of the Year 2011 is coming out of an amazing last season and is ready to continue just like that. “The Athlete of the Year award was a big motivation for me. You don’t get many opportunities like that and it’s a huge honor for me to stand amongst the likes of Usain Bolt. It’s a dream come true and that motivates me a lot.”

Vukicevic: “Pearson is a huge inspiration for us”
According to Christina Vukicevic the award is well deserved. Norway’s currently best hurdler goes long way back with Pearson. The two competitors challenged each other for the first time at the 2004 Junior World Championships. To have Pearson starting next to her in front of the home crowd is a dream-come-true for the 24 year old. “Now it’s really happening. To have Sally at the start here in Oslo is a huge inspiration not just for me, but for all of us. She’s the best hurdler of the last 20 years and even with that exhausting long flight she will be fast – and that means: she can push us to faster times as well!”