We marvelled as Steve Hooker’s dreams took flight in Beijing’s Bird’s Nest just 16 months ago. Four times he faced third-and-final attempts at heights during the Olympic pole vault competition. Four times he cleared them. His performance was a perfect Aussie victory, as gutsy as it was golden, as unashamedly happy as it was undoubtedly historic, a moment that made the 40 years since our last men’s athletics gold medal seem almost worth the wait.

So it appeared beyond reckoning that Hooker could return in 2009 and top his 2008 heroics. But, in defying injury, fear and general commonsense to achieve a miraculous win at the World Athletics Championships in Berlin in August, Hooker did just that. After injuring himself just ten days before he was due to compete, Hooker’s world champs looked over. He would take only three jumps, making two of them – one to qualify for the final, the other, at 5.90m, to win gold two nights later. Cathy Freeman is the only other Aussie to win both World and Olympic athletic titles – rare company for the ex-pat Victorian, now based in Perth, to keep.

We applaud his feats and name him our World-beater of the Year for 2009. But we also celebrate him for being the type of 27-yearold superstar you’d be proud to call a mate. In a year where the usual rollcall of buffoons, drunks and boys behaving badly made headlines for all the routinely wrong reasons, Hooker was a class act. He found time for a quiet coldie and chat with Travis Cranley.

This time a year ago you were getting used to being introduced as an Olympic champion. Now you’re also a world champion and the Aussie record-holder at 6.06m. Is there any way 2009 topped 2008?

I’m not giving either of them back. With 2009, it was really a year in two halves. The first half was my indoor season and Australian summer, which I could not have been happier with. Jumping the Australian record of 6.06m (at Boston in February) was a huge goal. The heights I was jumping and my level of consistency were both really pleasing. That gave me a lot of confidence coming into the European summer.

Then the second half was the European summer. It started really tough. I couldn’t get any rhythm. I was showing good form in training but I just couldn’t find any rhythm in competition. It was strange because I kept similar timing to previous European campaigns. We targeted the same lead-up events, we were based in the same city (Cologne, Germany), all that sort of stuff was fine. It just wasn’t happening.

Did you suffer any post-Beijing blues, given the emotional success you experienced in becoming Australia’s first field athlete to win a gold medal in 60 years?

I did struggle getting back into training after Beijing, but only for a couple of weeks. As soon as I started pole vaulting again, it was awesome. For the first time in about 24 months I didn’t feel under any pressure. It felt like I was just doing it for fun and I was really enjoying myself. I didn’t have the pressure of the big event coming up and holding me back.

I think that’s why I jumped so well in the indoor season at the start of the year. I still had the same form and technique I had at the Olympics, but there was a weight off my shoulders. When that happens, that’s when you get good results.

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