Knee injury still hindering Hooker's training

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http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009 ... tion=sport

Knee injury hindering Hooker's training

Posted 1 hour 36 minutes ago

Olympic pole vault champion Steve Hooker continues to be restricted by a knee injury heading into the World Athletics Championships in Berlin in August.

Hooker says he hopes to resume jumping within two weeks, and be ready to compete overseas again in July.

"It's a difficult injury ... it rubs along the knee and causes some swelling, and you've got to just really manage your training loads with that sort of an issue," he said.

Despite the injury Hooker remains confident he will have a solid lead-up to the Berlin event.

"I'll definitely be competing at the start of July somewhere or other," he said.

"Whether it's in Moscow, or somewhere in France, it'll be one of those meets, and hopefully I'll be ready to go for that."

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http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0 ... 01,00.html

Pole vaulter Steve Hooker casts aside injury concerns
Article from: PerthNowFont size:DecreaseIncreaseEmail article:EmailPrint article:PrintSubmit comment:Submit comment
Glen Foreman
June 22, 2009 02:15pm
OLYMPIC pole vault champion Steve Hooker is confident his bid for gold at the world titles has not been jeopodised by an injury-riddled season.

Hooker, who at a WA Institute of Sport breakfast in May talked about there being "no such thing as the perfect preparation", has suffered with ITB (illiotibial band) friction syndrome since his Olympic record-setting jump of 5.96m in Beijing last year.

The injury caused pressure on the 26-year-old's neck and, coupled with a shoulder strain, hindered the vaulter's preparations for Berlin's world championships in August.

But Hooker said he felt confident a strong base of experience and training would still enable him to challenge for a maiden world title.

"My first month of training was really solid ... but then the knee injury flared up again, " Hooker said.

"Since then, I've struggled to string some serious training together.

"In spite of that though, I feel like I've got my little niggles under control now and I feel like I'm going away in decent shape.

"It's not the ideal preparation that I've done. But I'm not going to sit back and focus on what I've missed.

"I'm going to focus on where I'm at, what I'm doing well, what I can improve in the next month or two."

Hooker battled through injury earlier in the year to back up his Olympic performance at a set of meets in the US, including the Boston Indoor Games where he set a personal best of 6.06m to become the second highest jumper in the sport's history.

The WAIS athlete said his ability to overcome a lack of preparation at those meets gave him confidence his worlds campaign had not been jeopodised.

"I've done more pole vault preparation in the last month than I did in the last month before I went to the US," Hooker said.

"I know I can jump high - I did a really solid pole vault session yesterday, jumping on good poles and jumping high.

"So I know it's there, the real trick is going to be keeping my body in one piece over the trip. When you miss some training, you can be a bit more susceptible to injury."

Hooker said he expected the competition at the world championships to be stronger than at the Beijing Games and his bid for a world title would require some outstanding results.

"I think guys are going to be jumping well this year," he said.

"I mean the French guy, Renaud (Lavillenie), jumped 6.01m overnight. And I'm sure Brad Walker (US) is going to come out and jump really high this year as well.

"I feel confident I can jump high, I know other guys are going to jump high, so I'm looking forward to a lot of fierce battles this year.

"I'm still very hungry - I've never won a world championships medal.

"I think Berlin is a great venue for me in the way that I jump - I've jumped well there before (5.96m in 2006)."

Hooker headed to Europe on Monday where he will compete in four meets throughout July ahead of the August 15-23 world championships in Berlin, Germany.