David Oliver wins the second 110m hurdles semi final (© Getty Images)
When all else failed in Beijing last year, US hurdles champion David Oliver ignored all the scientific advice about the dos and don’ts of nutrition and salvaged a medal from the Olympic Games.
The US indoor (60m hurdles) and outdoor (110m hurdles) titleholder's Olympic campaign was down the toilet, literally, until he sought refuge beneath the ubiquitous golden arches.
“A lot of things went wrong for me in Beijing. I was sick for 10 days with the food which knocked me out of training.” Oliver said in Sydney yesterday, sparing us the details.
“From there, I got on `the plan' and ate McDonalds and I was healthy from there. My body knows how to get what it needs out of those golden arches and I was fine from there.”
Fine enough to claim the bronze medal in one of his slowest times of the year, 13.18sec, a still scintillating time he expects to come close to already after an obviously healthy training phase back home in Florida.
This week he flew in to Australia after competing in Birmingham, UK on Saturday (21) the last meet of an indoor season in which on 7 February from Stuttgart, Germany where he ran the equal world's fastest 60m Hurdles time for the year of (7.45sec).
Oliver is ‘down-under’ to compete in the Sydney Track Classic at Homebush on Saturday evening (28). This meet is one of a select group of Area competitions at which points can be acquired by athletes to qualify for the IAAF / VTB Bank World Athletics Final, to be held on 12-13 September in Thessaloniki, Greece. Oliver won at last summer's World Athletics Final in Stuttgart.
“I'm really excited to be here. If I run a decent time, that will set me up for the outdoor season including the Berlin World championships in August,” Oliver added.
“I'm looking to open maybe in the low 13.3 in this first meet. Of course if I had it all my way I'd run 12sec. I'm optimistic though: If I get on the (start) line I always feel I can run the World record.”
“You can't run fast sitting at home. The best indication of how you're training is doing it in competition.”
Shocked by Liu’s injury
Oliver was just as shocked, but hardly as grief-stricken, as a billion Chinese after local hero Liu Xiang broke down at the start and could not defend his Olympic 110m hurdles crown.
Losing Liu was the equivalent of Australians losing Cathy Freeman from the Sydney Olympics. Unthinkable.
“With Liu out I was shocked. I saw him in the warm-up and he looked pretty good,” Oliver said.
But having been drained of energy due to his 10-day stomach upset, the 190cm and 93kg Oliver had problems of his own which he reconciled as follows:
“If you're having a good day you challenge the World record. If you're not having a good day you still win the meet and when you're having a bad day you still make the podium; Beijing was the worst finish of the year for me.”
Australia’s challenge
In fact he was beaten in only two other races last year and has no intentions of starting his year with another loss on Saturday (28) when his closest rival will probably be the fast-starting Sydney University student Justin Merlino.
Merlino is a gifted but comparatively inexperienced high hurdles specialist. He won the Australian title last year in a wind-legal personal best of 13.55sec.
That time equalled the Olympic B-qualifying standard which gave Athletics Australia's (AA) selectors the discretion to send him to Beijing, but they declined. Bringing Oliver and training partner Joel Brown, who ran in the hurdles and 200m sprint at last year's World Athletics Final, is AA's gesture of reconciliation and encouragement of the disappointed Merlino and his passionate Russian coach Fira Dvoskina.
Mike Hurst (Sydney Daily Telegraph) for the IAAF