Sally Pearson had a season to remember last year, winning all but one of her 11 races, producing seven of the quickest 11 performances and claiming world gold in the fourth fastest time ever run. The 25-year-old Australian 100m hurdler was rewarded with the IAAF accolade of female athlete of the year, which carries with it a cheque for $100,000.
Early this season, Pearson replicated her blistering form that saw her win gold in Daegu, South Korea, in 12.28sec over the shorter 60m hurdles at the world indoors in Istanbul in March. After a 10-day break following her Turkish exploits, Pearson was back in training for the "summer" season, but the Oslo Diamond League meet on Thursday will be her first in Europe.
"I'm still in a daze but ready to go!" beamed Pearson after spending 29 hours on planes to get to the Norwegian capital. "But of course I want to do the best I can on Thursday. I will have a small warm-up training session to get a bit more comfortable with the venue and I'll see how that goes."
The Australian clocked a 12.49sec time in March on home soil, and she said she'd be happy to match that come Thursday. "It's hard to really set the goals. I don't know the track and weather conditions here but based on my training experiences I'd go for a 12.4 time." She admitted that the long-standing 100m hurdles record of 12.21sec, set by Bulgarian Yordanka Donkova way back in 1998, was in her crosshairs.
"It's definitively time to beat it," Pearson acknowledged. She added that her IAAF accolade, which meant she became the first athlete from Oceania to be honoured as such since the awards were introduced in 1988, had been a huge boost. "The athlete of the year award was a big motivation for me. You don't get many opportunities like that and it's a huge honour for me to stand alongside the likes of Usain Bolt.
"It's a dream come true and that motivates me a lot." With Australian team-mate Steve Hooker battling to regain the form that saw him win golds at the Beijing Olympics and 2009 Berlin world championships, Pearson has emerged as her country's main medal hope at the London Games.