| Tamsyn all smiles as road to London begins |
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By RON REED The Sunday Age December 12, 2008 CONTROVERSIAL sprinter Tamsyn Lewis dried the tears from Beijing when she returned to the track in Melbourne last night. Lewis comfortably won the 400m at the Zatopek meeting at Olympic Park, Melbourne's first taste of the looming track and field season -- and her first hitout since her disappointing Olympic campaign. She ran a smart 52.57sec, finishing too strongly for New Zealand's Monique Williams, 53.31sec, and NSW's Trisha Greaves 53.49sec. Lewis, the indoor 800m world champion, reached the 800m semi-finals in Bejing but folded badly to finish last and left the track in distress, with most observers questioning why she chose to run a heat of the 400m that day. "I just wanted to erase the memory of Beijing," she said. "Athletics is so mental, you can have a great race and your confidence is sky-high and have a bad race and you just lose it. At the end of the day it is just a sport." Lewis said she was nervous returning to the track for the first time, but "I am always nervous first time back and the good thing was that I had a lot of mates in the race to chat to". She had kept a low profile since the Games but announced last weekend she was setting her sights on a fourth Olympics in London in 2012. Few big names competed last night but a promising one emerged in 18-year-old West Australian Ray Williams, who won the 200m in 21.16sec. Williams, sporting the red, yellow and black Aboriginal colours, is a product of Athletics Australia's Jump Start to London program, which is designed to unearth indigenous talent and hone it for the Games. Williams is likely to move to the Institute of Sport in Canberra to train under top coach Tudor Bidder. He showed impressive speed in the straight to run down Melbourne sprinter Aaron Rouge-Serret (21.21sec) and Olympic 400m semi-finalist Sean Wroe (21.29sec). Four-time 100m national champion Josh Ross made a low-key first appearance on a Melbourne track since moving here recently to try to re-ignite his career. Ross and Rouge-Serret, his training partner, won a two-legged 100m relay, beating two elite pairs and three schoolboy combinations in what amounted to a novelty event. Between them, they were clocked at 20.58sec winning comfortably from Australian 100m champion Otis Gowa and Sean Wroe in 20.84sec. Ross, who abandoned his Beijing campaign after encountering emotional and motivational problems last summer, said he was relaxed and happy with the run. He is also running in pro races with a view to winning the Stawell Gift for the third time at Easter. He will run in the North Sydney Gift today. Beijing Olympian Dani Samuels dominated the women's discus, easily winning with 60.96m. |