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http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/ ... 5784467472

Hooker our most inspirational

By Ron Reed in Melbourne From: The Daily Telegraph Fri Oct 09 00:00:00 EST 2009 Fri Oct 09 00:00:00 EST 2009


Winner...Australian pole vaulter Steve Hooker at the Australian Hall of Fame awards with his girlfriend, Russian runner Ekaterina Kostetskaya. Picture: Rebecca Michael Source: The Daily Telegraph
WITH one of Russia's most glamorous athletes on his arm, pole vaulter Steve Hooker was named last night as Australia's most inspirational sports star for the second year in a row.

"Life's pretty good," Hooker said with a grin, to the surprise of no one.

Hooker, 27, won the Sport Australia Hall of Fame's signature award, The Don, for his courageous triumph at the world championships in Berlin in August.

He and his girlfriend Ekaterina Kostetskaya, 22, a leading 800m runner, were a hit on the red carpet at Crown Casino, where the Hall of Fame celebrated its 25th birthday.

The pair met at the Beijing Olympics, where she narrowly missed the semi-finals and he won the pole vault gold medal. The romance blossomed and she is now training in Perth, where Melbourne-born Hooker lives. Hooker's Beijing victory earned him a half-share of The Don last year with gold medal-winning diver Matthew Mitcham, and now he has become the first dual winner in the award's 12-year history.



The quality of the field made the award - which is based not just on achievement, but the late Sir Donald Bradman's principles of courage, sportsmanship, inspiration and modesty - even more satisfying.

The other finalists were reborn tennis player Jelena Dokic, master trainer Bart Cummings, swimmer Jessicah Schipper, racing driver Mark Webber and world champion discus thrower Dani Samuels.

The Hall of Fame citation said Hooker had shown "extraordinary courage as well as a large measure of self-belief" by defying adductor and thigh injuries - and the advice of team doctors - to pull off a strategic coup. He waited until all but three competitors had been eliminated before entering the contest at 5.85m and then overcame the pain barrier to blow them away with a leap of 5.90m.

"It was the hardest thing I've ever done," he said. "I wasn't sure I'd be able to get off the ground at all."

But he knew he was in great form and wanted to have a crack.

He knew he had pulled off something special when the world's greatest track athlete, Usain Bolt, and his Jamaican teammate Asafa Powell approached him and asked: "How did you do that?"

http://www.watoday.com.au/breaking-news ... -gp41.html

Hooker wins Don award for second year
John Salvado
October 8, 2009 - 7:59PM
Page 1 of 2 | Single Page View
Steve Hooker has been recognised for his remarkable effort in defying a serious leg injury to claim the world pole vault title by becoming the first sportsperson to win the Don Award for the second time.

Hooker won the award at the Sport Australia Hall of Fame (SAHOF) function on Thursday night as the Australian athlete whose performance in the previous 12 months had the capacity to most inspire the nation.

Hooker, 27, seemed certain to be forced out of the world championships in Berlin in August when he tore his adductor muscle and suffered a neural problem in his thigh in a training mishap 12 days before the final.

But - in conjunction with coach Alex Parnov - he developed a high-risk strategy, taking only one jump in the qualifying round.

Parnov and team medical staff then advised Hooker not to contest the final, fearful he would aggravate the groin injury.

But he decided to press on, despite being unable to do any run-throughs or practice jumps.

He narrowly missed his first attempt in the final at 5.85m, before deciding he had one more jump in him.

Defying the pain he then went over at 5.90m, which proved good enough to win the world title.

No other vaulter had ever entered an Olympic or world final at such a height and gone on to claim the gold medal.

"I don't know how I did it, it is very difficult to explain," Hooker said in Berlin.

"It's a mental battle you have to fight with yourself and you have to convince yourself that you are ready, that you are ready to pick up a massive competition pole that is going to throw you nearly six metres in the air.

"... It has been a very, very challenging couple of weeks ... it has been a roller-coaster and every day it was a question of whether I would jump or not. "

Hooker also shared The Don Award - named in honour of Sir Donald Bradman - last year with diver Matthew Mitcham after he won the Olympic pole vault title in Beijing, having four times cleared the bar at his third and final attempt.

The other 2009 finalists were discus thrower Dani Samuels, tennis comeback star Jelena Dokic, legendary horse trainer Bart Cummings, Formula One driver Mark Webber and swimmer Jess Schipper.

The SAHOF has been awarding the Don Award since 1998.

Track and field athletes have dominated the award, with previous winners including marathon runners Heather Turland (1998) and Kerryn McCann (2006), Olympic 400m champion Catherine Freeman (2000) and Hooker in 2008.

Hooker said his next target was to better the world record of 6.14m set by the great Sergey Bubka.

"That's what I'm aiming for now," he said on Thursday.

"In the last two years I've ticked off two massive goals off my list and now it's all really about seeing how high I can jump."

http://www.smh.com.au/news/sport/richar ... ntentSwap1

Predictably, pole vaulter Steve Hooker won the Don award for the year's greatest achievement. Included in Hooker's 417th recitation of his winning jump at this year's world championships was the phrase: ''There is a legendary story in pole vault circles …'' He need not have said more. It was fascinating enough fact that: a) There are pole vaulting circles; and b) There are legendary pole vaulting stories. (The story itself was unexceptional.)

Interesting side note: the Russian girlfriend, Ekaterina "Katya" Kostetskaya, actually grew up in Jonesboro, AR, hometown of the legendary Bell Athletics as she was one of many Russian families/athletes brought over to the U.S. by Earl's sister-in-law, a former Russian athlete and coach who now coaches there. I was told Katya actually tried vaulting once or twice out at "the building" but was groomed to be a middle distance runner/long sprinter/hurdler so steered away from it. She competed under head coach and former Soviet team coach Galina Bukharina at Texas State University in San Marcos during my tenure as vault coach there as I got to watch this phenomenal athlete run laps around the track day after day instead of running down the runway with a pole in her hand. Now she's with the world's best pole vaulter. Seems like Katya keeps ending up in pv hotspots - perhaps she ended up in the wrong event!