Less than a week after experiencing the high of booking a ticket to Moscow for this year’s world championships, Canberra sprint star Melissa Breen has experienced the low of injury.
Breen strained her soleus – part of her calf – during training on Wednesday and was anxiously awaiting the results of a scan to know how long she’ll be out of action.
She will know more on Monday when she speaks with the AIS doctors, but was hopeful it would be a four to six-week recovery period. It comes after the 22-year-old recorded an A-qualifying time at the Sydney Track Classic last weekend to qualify for the world championships.
She stopped the clock in a personal-best time of 11.25 seconds.
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What a week it has been, filled with awesome highs with two personal bests at the Sydney Track Classic, and now within days of competing at the Perth Track I have unfortunately strained my soleus while training in Perth.
I am very grateful for all the support I am receiving from my coach Matt, physio Ben and all my training partners who are over in Perth with me.
Not the end of the world but at this stage it will be unlikely I will be competing anymore in the Australian Domestic Season. I wish everyone success for the rest of the tour and I will be back better and stronger soon.
Where do I begin… The 2013 Sydney Track Classic was unreal. Two personal bests, an A qualifying time for the World Championships in the 100m and a B qualifying time for the World Championships in the 200m.
I cannot honestly wipe the smile off my face.
As always a big thank you at all the officials, volunteers and to everyone who came out to support the Sydney leg of the Australian Athletics Tour.
I am off to Perth next week to compete at the Perth Track Classic this coming Saturday 16th March.
After competing at the Adelaide Track Classic, I caught up with Athletics Australia, to talk about my London 2012 Olympic Games experience and looking ahead to the 2013 Season.
I am thankful for some product support and proudly wear ASICS and OAKLEY. I am also an ACTAS scholarship holder and receive some support from my national sporting organisation – Athletics Australia.
I am a proud female athlete that works hard and wants nothing more than to represent my country and supporters on the world stage. Last year I was lucky enough, or maybe I could say I worked hard enough, to be selected to represent Australia at the ultimate competition for me which is the Olympic Games. At 22 years of age I am now focused on working harder and smarter so that I can again compete at the Olympic Games in Rio.
Would I like and welcome some financial support to assist me in my aspirations to be one of the worlds best sprinters?
Absolutely I would and welcome the chance to establish some mutually beneficial relationships with sponsors that would be willing to back me but not having it currently isn’t going to stop me pursuing my dreams of being the fastest Australian sprinter ever. Currently I do not have a signed contract or receive any financial support from any sponsors but obviously would welcome a call or email from any marketing or sponsorship directors out there that may be interested in forming a business relationship.
Would I be interested in doing some modelling and promotion for companies?
Absolutely and would love to get more opportunities to do this type of work as well as any product ambassador type roles. Yes I may have more muscles than the typical female which makes me stand out a little but I don’t think that this should make me less marketable. I honestly feel that qualities such as drive, commitment to hard work and passion that I must display as an elite athlete is what business truly associate with because regardless of who we are or what we do these qualities are common traits required to achieve happiness and success.
In the meantime my priority is pretty simple – Run as fast as I can!
I am not here to complain about lack of sponsors or claim that what I do is harder or deserving of more support than other fields of work. There are plenty of talented sportspeople, artists, entrepreneurs out there trying to get some financial support to survive and I have learnt that the sponsorship market is extremely tough so I don’t lose any sleep about not having any major sponsorship deals or requests for modelling shoots etc.
In the end my rewards for the hard work, sweat and tears are not revolved around or assessed by financial rewards but instead my reward will come through the personal satisfaction of hopefully achieving my goals or even through knowing I have given myself every opportunity to reach my potential.
