Australian hurdler's Olympic dreams twice-smashed by ill fortune

(BEIJING, July 10) -- Australian 400-meter hurldler Jana Rawlinson will miss the Summer Games in Beijing due to a toe injury, according to a report published on the official website of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF).

James Ward, Rawlinson's manager, told the Associated Press on Wednesday that the hurdler's chance to compete in the first Olympics ever staged in China had been stolen from the athlete by a foot injury.

The 25-year-old hurdler seems to be ill-fated, almost like a star-crossed player in an ancient Greek tragedy, when it comes to competing in the Olympics.

Rawlinson was prevented from competing in the Athens Olympics in 2004, on the eve of the Games, when she hurt her knee.

Jana Rawlinson won the world championship in the 400-meter hurdles in 2003 in Paris and then again in 2007 in Osaka, and had been considered as among one of Australia's best-positioned athletes to seize a track gold medal at the Beijing Summer Games.

She had stopped running after attending the IAAF World Athletics Tour competition in Shanghai in September of 2007, the association stated on its website. Rawlinson returned to the track on July 1, to a race in Bydgoszcz, Poland, and finished second.

Rawlinson was quoted on the IAAF website as saying: "I am numb."

"I still couldn't even run in a straight line," she added.

Although Australia’s chances to win the 400-meter hurdles at the Olympics have been dashed, Athletics Australia national performance manager Max Binnington told Russia's Pravda news agency that he still had great hopes for the team: "Those athletes who have been there before or been very successful in world championships, we want to see them certainly top eight."

Pravda also quoted manager James Ward as saying that Rawlinson was doubly hurt, first by the foot injury, and then by her lost opportunity to compete in Beijing: "It is devastating for her."

"She's very unlucky to have had this happen two Olympics in a row. Both times she's had to battle injuries," Ward added.

Rawlinson had headed a list of 41 athletics competitors slated to join the Beijing Summer Games released just this week by the Australian Olympic Committee.