Urine drenched cyclists pumped with the blood of horses; paranoid weightlifters hopped up on crazy and security forces walking around holding onto themselves. These were the Australians given most attention leading up to the coverage of the Olympic games in Athens, Greece. Now, thanks to an overnight operation, the focus is back on the soul event, track and field. All due in no small part to Jana Pittman and her buckled, then unbuckled, knee.
Slamming its way across the myriad of spans for the attentive and vegetative, Pittman's woes and excruciating facial expressions were cast following the international travels of her knee. While stationed in Germany the focused joint was blown. A Swiss orthopaedic surgeon cast the first glance and deemed it wasted. Running over to London, Pittman scored a second opinion from Dr Fares Haddad with much better hopes of taking the knee and indeed, the rest of her body, onto the tracks in Greece. Within a 24-hour turnaround, well short of holding a stolen baby, her chances of competing went from 1% to 60% at the switch of nationalities.
Shaky as she may be taking the blocks in the heats, many still believe her to be the best hope given that others will be attending via their couches and beanbags back home in Australia. However the results blur, Pittman will still have an ace up her sleeve for the adulation wanting come the Commonwealth games in 2006 and the Beijing Olympics in 2008; that of a comeback kid hobbled just a week out from her big Athens run.
The Tamsyn Lewis Show was a mere blip in comparison.
Written on Monday, 9 August 2004