Hooker happy to air problems in public

Australia's defending Olympic pole vault champion Steve Hooker said Monday he felt no shame in discussing the problems that have sometimes even prevented him from taking off. "I am not afraid to talk about it," Hooker, who suffered a crisis of confidence following a knee injury, said at the Australian athletics training camp in Tonbridge, south-east of London. "It doesn't make a difference. It's a hindrance in that it takes up time and energy. I'm not shy talking about it. Everyone has performance issues. I'm just probably more open about it than other people." Things got so bad for Hooker that in February he said: "The confidence I require to stand at the end of the runway and then charge down, land my pole and soar almost six metres into the air has left me for the time being. "Sometimes I run in and I don't take off. It's as simple as that." Some have compared Hooker's predicament to a golfer struggling to putt because of the 'yips', only there is potentially rather more at stake physically for the Australian if he mistimes his jump than is the case with a missed birdie chance. "It's a confidence thing, a rhythm thing and a timing thing," Hooker added Monday. "There are also physical factors at play. It's a complicated sport and the only way I can put it (is) it's all got to feel right when you're running down the runway otherwise you are not going to want to take the jump, and it's the same for everyone." "It doesn't feel like you're in the right spot. Something is going wrong in the approach or something else and you don't have the confidence to take it up and risk your safety." But the good news for Hooker, now set for this third Olympics, is that last weekend he cleared a height of 5.72 metres in Poland, way in excess of his previous best this year of 5.42m. "It shows where I'm at and where I feel like I have been for the last month or so," he said. "I think the 5.72m jump in particular has been the best I've done in a couple of years. "I felt some old feelings that I haven't felt for a while. "I'm just now looking to work on a few technical things over the next couple of weeks which hopefully I can iron out and go into the qualifying round at the Games with some confidence that I'll be in the final." Hooker, in common with several leading athletes, said his focus was not so much on defending his title as jumping well. "I'm not thinking about defending my title as much as I'm thinking about going out there and doing good jumps. I'm really driven by the process now more than the outcomes." Meanwhile Hooker, asked what advice he'd give to Australian Olympic debutants joked: "Stay away from the media. They suck the life out of you in the last couple of weeks."