STEVEN HOOKER (2022)

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STEVEN HOOKER OAM (16 July 1982 – )

The son of 1972 Olympian Erica Nixon and 1974 Commonwealth runner Bill Hooker, Steve, needless to say, began his initiation into athletics fairly early in life. But there was also a great love of Australian Rules football, and Steve enjoyed playing as well. Steve began his adventure with athletics more as a sprinter but was eventually drawn to the pole vault and began what was to become an illustrious career. He came under the tutelage of coach Mark Stewart at Box Hill AC, who had then recently coached Emma George towards a swathe of world records and other successes.

Steve finished fourth at the 1998 National All-Schools Championships in Canberra with 4.40m, and by January the following year, his personal best was 4.45m. He rapidly improved throughout 1999, and in early December, he cleared 5.00m, which he followed a week later by winning the National All-Schools in Sydney with 4.91m. Steve opted to compete in the senior Nationals in 2000 but finished 13th in the qualifying round with 4.55m and missed the final. He was selected for the 2000 IAAF World Junior Championships in Chile after finishing fourth in the Australian Olympic Trials. In Santiago, Steve cleared a personal best of 5.20m to finish fourth – just missing a bronze on the countback.

Steve won the 2001 National Junior title in Brisbane with 5.30m, a PB, and finished fourth in the senior event with 5.15m. Steve missed a lot of the 2002 season due to injury but did manage to raise his PB to 5.35m in October. His good form continued into early 2003 when he improved to 5.45m at Box Hill, but then, once again, injury slowed his career. Steve was, however, selected to compete in the World University Games in Daegu in August, where he finished 11th with 5.10m.

Steve began the 2004 Olympic year in great form, and at the Nationals in Sydney, he cleared 5.65m to finish second behind Dmitri Markov with the same height. He had secured his first Olympic team spot. Unfortunately for Steve, he was unable to replicate his early season form, and 5.30m did not get him out of the qualifying round in Athens. Steve and Markov again cleared the same height of 5.50m at the 2005 Nationals in Sydney, finishing behind Paul Burgess. Nevertheless, Steve was off to his first World Championships – in Helsinki, Finland. Unfortunately, success was out of reach, and 5.45m in a qualifying round chaotically affected by equipment failures and weather left him out of the final.

A home Commonwealth Games in Melbourne beckoned, with myriad athletes battling for spots on the team. Again, the nation’s top three vaulters battled it out at the Sydney Nationals and finished in the same order as the year before but with better heights – Burgess 5.80m, Hooker 5.75m, and Markov 5.70m. At the Melbourne Cricket Ground, there was finally an international gold, as Steve cleared 5.80m to win the Commonwealth title ahead of Markov at 5.60m. Steve made the decision to change coaches and moved to Perth to be guided by Alex Parnov.

Good form continued during his European season with a big win in Berlin with 5.96m, followed by victory in the IAAF World Cup in Athens at 5.80m. Steve finally got his first national title at the 2007 Championships in Brisbane. He cleared 5.50m behind visiting American Brad Walker’s 5.95m. As a result, Steve was off to Osaka, Japan, for his second World Championships, and this time, he made it to the final, finishing ninth with 5.76m.

The 2008 Olympic year began well for Steve when he joined the much sought-after “6 metre club” in Perth in January. He then added another national title in Brisbane, followed by a third place at the World Indoor Championships in Valencia, Spain, in March with 5.80m. The 2008 Olympics were in Beijing, China, and delivered the greatest achievement of Steve’s career when he won a dramatic competition with 5.96m. The contest went deep beyond the scheduled finish of the session. Nine athletes were still in when the bar reached 5.70m, but eventually, it essentially came down to Steve and Russian Yevgeny Lukyanenko, with the later disqualified Ukrainian Denys Yurchenko staying in the competition but playing only a weird passing strategy.

Both Steve and Lukyanenko cleared 5.85m on their third attempts – leaving them tied. The Russian then bowed out at 5.90m, where Steve again cleared on his third try to secure the gold. Free of any challenge, Steve mastered 5.96m, again on his third, to add to his spoils a new Olympic record.

Steve’s good form continued in 2009 with a new Australian record of 6.06m at the Boston Indoor Games in February. Later that year, he won the World Championships in Berlin with 5.90m in a style even more dramatic than his Beijing triumph. Battling injury and requiring permitted injections immediately prior to competition, his strategy was to take as few jumps as possible. In the qualifying, he took and needed only one – clearing first up at 5.65m, which proved to be all that was necessary to proceed to the final.

Steve had to take two vaults in the final – missing after waiting to enter the competition at 5.85m when only three others remained. He passed to the next height of 5.90m, which he cleared on his first, forcing the remaining athletes, the two Frenchmen Mesnil and Lavillenie, to go up to the next height after failing their first trials but where they failed again. Another gold for the Australian.

The next phase was one of recovery, and it worked – with his world domination continuing into 2010, beginning with gold at the World Indoors in Doha with 6.01m, followed by the national title – his last – in Perth with 5.80m. Steve retained his World Cup title, now known as the Continental Cup in Split, Croatia, with 5.95m and narrowly the Commonwealth title in New Delhi with 5.60m on the countback.

Steve’s next major competition was the 2011 World Championships in Daegu, Korea, but he no-heighted in the qualifying round. Steve began suffering again from what he called the ‘yips’ and was struggling on the runway and to meet the 2012 Olympic standard. However, he finally cleared 5.72m at the railway warehouse in Perth, which had been converted to a state-of-the-art training facility. Unfortunately for Steve, the London Games did not pan out as expected. He qualified for the final, where he no-heighted. Steve’s career was diminishing, and the drive that took him to the top of the world was no longer there.

He married fellow international athlete Yekaterina Kostetskaya. Steve retired in 2014 to concentrate on family and his career in property, as well as TV appearances as an expert athletics commentator at Olympic and Commonwealth Games. Steve was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in 2009 and was also inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 2017.

Paul Jenes OAM, Athletics Australia Statistician, President ATFS

Acknowledgements: Athletics Australia’s Historical Records: Peter Hamilton, Paul Jenes, Fletcher McEwen, David Tarbotton; World Athletics – IAAF official results of World Championships and World Cups; Mark Butler – Olympic Games results; Wikipedia; Brian Roe; Official Results of Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, World Championships, World Cups, and Universiades.

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