23.10.2009

McLellan looks to new challenge on road to Commonwealth Games

Best known for her success over the hurdles, Queensland sensation Sally McLellan is getting set to take on a whole new ball game this season as she continues her bid for Commonwealth Games glory.

The Olympic silver medallist and four-time national 100m hurdles champion is already one of the top athletics talents in the nation, but this summer will test her mettle both on the track and in the field when she lines up in the heptathlon.

Never one to shy away from a challenge and with the determination possessed only by the world’s best athletes, the 23-year-old is hard at training for April’s national multi-event championships on the Gold Coast, just one week ahead of the Commonwealth Games selection trials where she will aim to qualify for both the 100m hurdles and 200m sprint.

"I am not expecting much, I'm never going to be a world-beater in heptathlon and I'm not planning to do it at the Commonwealth Games, but it will be a new challenge for me," McLellan told The Australian.

"I don't get a lot of challenge (in the 100m hurdles) in Australia, so this is a way to push myself. My body is already feeling it."

While she has never contested a heptathlon – the closest she has come is a pentathlon back in her junior days – the gritty Gold Coaster knows the move to the all-rounders’ event can only enhance her performance on the track.
 
"The closest I've done is a pentathlon in Little Athletics," McLellan said.

"I think the hardest events for me will be the shot put and the high jump, because I'm short and I don't have a lot of spring in my legs. But the training is making me strong in a lot of areas I haven't been strong in before which can only help me in the hurdles."

McLellan will also take on the long jump, javelin throw and 800m in the two-day event.

Unlike Flame teammate Tamsyn Lewis, who last season switched her allegiance from the 800m - an event in which she won nine national titles - to the 400m hurdles, McLellan’s foray into the heptathlon is a short-term plan.

But with both the 100m hurdles and 200m events featured in the heptathlon, McLellan will be a force to reckoned with in the seven-event challenge as she looks ahead to the 88th Australian championships and Commonwealth Games trials in Perth next year.

"I'd really like to do the 200m at the Commonwealth Games because I think I have huge potential to get a good time out in that event. I hope the program permits me to do it," she said.

With a quality line-up of athletes set to feature the top five finishers from the Berlin world championships on the cards for Delhi, McLellan knows she will be up against the very best in her field when the gun fires at the Commonwealth Games start line. 

Now well into the recovery phase of a back injury that hampered her world championships campaign, McLellan is determined to build the strength she needs to be at the top of her game in October. 

"When I came back from Europe I had scans done in Melbourne which found I had a tear in one of my lower discs," she said. "The doctor said I was lucky even to get up for the final because most people wouldn't be able to walk. But I guess the adrenalin and nerves helped me through."

McLellan’s first hit-out in the heptathlon will be at a Gold Coast interclub meet on November 21-22, where she will assume a more relaxed approach to competition.

"I'm just going to wing it, really," she said.

And with McLellan on the start line, it’s sure to be worth watching.