Jana Rawlinson
Encyclopedia
Jana Pittman-Rawlinson (born 9 November 1982 in Sydney
) is an Australia
n athlete, who specialises in the 400 metres
run and 400 metre hurdles events. She is a two-time world champion in the 400 m hurdles, from 2003
and 2007
. She also won the gold medal
in this event at the 2002
and 2006 Commonwealth Games
and was part of Australia's winning 4 x 400 metres relay
teams at both events.
Pittman won the 400 m hurdles at the 1999 World Youth Championships in Athletics
in Bydgoszcz and became treble champion in 200 m
, 400 m and 400 m hurdles at the national championships of that year. In 2000, she became the first woman ever to win the 400 m flat and hurdles double at any IAAF or IOC championships - in this case, the 2000 World Junior Championships in Santiago
(Chile
).
, Pittman tore her cartilage
in her right knee during a warm-up for a track meet in Zurich
, where she had been favored to win the 400 m hurdles event. After undergoing surgery in London
only one week before the start of the games, she ran 5th in the final.
, Pittman announced her intention to leave Australia, possibly for the UK
, after the negative publicity surrounding her knee and her disagreement with fellow athlete Tamsyn Lewis
: "Since Athens, my image is all about drama and I hate it." Pittman said there had been a "mixed" response from the Australian public since the media dubbed their rivalry a "catfight" and a "bitchfight". She related that when she had been walking down the street a week earlier, a group of men in a car yelled out, "We love you, Tamsyn, we hate you, Pitts". "I didn't create that", the 400 m hurdler was quoted as saying. "I didn't want that". She also referenced the current edition of Ralph magazine at the time, in which Lewis posed in a bikini and which carried the tag line on the cover, "It's alright Tam, we don't like Jana Pittman either".
In the buildup to her races at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, Pittman was widely reported as being nervous about the possible crowd reaction in the wake of the negative publicity. However, the ovation of the home crowd was loud and long, both before and after the 400 m hurdles Final, and in interviews afterwards Pittman expressed her feelings of relief. The crowd response was strikingly different at a nightclub hosting post-games celebrations, where after an introduction she was booed off the stage.
TV program Offsiders, questioned Pittman's motivation for writing the letter: "I know she is going to spend, well, at least half the year in England and I think some of the girls wondered whether it was just to try and make peace, so that she wouldn't face any animosity once she was living and training in England," he said.
She carried a slight injury through her 2007 season, having surgery later in the year to remove loose cartilage and floating bone fragments in the second toe of her right foot.
Pittman was pre-selected for the 2008 Australian Olympic team in late 2007.
.
In February 2008, Pittman was quoted as saying she could visualise her win at the Beijing Olympics
and that she would run a world record time. But on 9 July 2008, Pittman announced she would not be competing at the Beijing Games, because of the complications with the toe injury. The Australian
subsequently reported that a large number of Australians had "viciously turned against the fallen track star", strongly criticising her.
, Spain
. She won the 400 metre hurdles in a time of 55.67 seconds ahead of Ukrainian
Anastasiya Rabchenyuk
and Janet Wienand of South Africa
. However, she was not fit enough to defend her title at the 2009 World Championships
. A hamstring
problem caused by bulging disc in her back interrupted her preparation for the tournament, but she was confident of a return, saying "I hope I can recover from this latest setback and get back on track for my long term goal and dream - winning Olympic Gold in London
in 2012
".
Another 20 months passed before her return to competition. In April 2011, she beat domestic rival Lauren Boden on the final leg of the Australian Athletics Tour.
at Morningstar Estate on the Mornington Peninsula
, Victoria
. Rawlinson, also a specialist 400 m hurdler, coached Jana from 2004 - 2009. On 14 December 2006 she gave birth to the couple's first child, son Cornelis Levi. She later stated that she had gone for a hard twenty-minute run on the morning of the birth and "felt like a whale".
In April 2009 it was announced that Pittman and Rawlinson has separated after three years of marriage and in May 2009 she returned to training under Craig Hilliard who had previously coached her. In an interview on 24 October 2009 her new role as a single mother was described as "Jana's toughest hurdle".
In January 2010 it was announced that Pittman had been reconciled with Rawlinson and that they would remarry. On 31 March 2010, Pittman remarried Rawlinson in England, wearing an unconventional red wedding dress. However, on 16 April 2011 it was announced that Pittman and Rawlinson had split again.
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
) is an Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n athlete, who specialises in the 400 metres
400 metres
The 400 metres, or 400 metre dash, is a common sprinting event in track and field competitions. It has been featured in the athletics programme at the Summer Olympics since 1896 . On a standard outdoor running track, it is exactly one lap around the track. Runners start in staggered positions and...
run and 400 metre hurdles events. She is a two-time world champion in the 400 m hurdles, from 2003
2003 World Championships in Athletics
The 9th World Championships in Athletics, under the auspices of the International Association of Athletics Federations, were held from 23 August to 31 August 2003 in the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, Seine-Saint-Denis, France.-Track:...
and 2007
2007 World Championships in Athletics
The 11th World Championships in Athletics, under the auspices of the International Association of Athletics Federations , were held at Nagai Stadium in Osaka, Japan from 24 August to 2 September 2007...
. She also won the gold medal
Gold medal
A gold medal is typically the medal awarded for highest achievement in a non-military field. Its name derives from the use of at least a fraction of gold in form of plating or alloying in its manufacture...
in this event at the 2002
2002 Commonwealth Games
The 2002 Commonwealth Games were held in Manchester, England from 25 July to 4 August 2002. The XVII Commonwealth Games was the largest multi-sport event ever to be held in the UK, eclipsing London's 1948 Summer Olympics in numbers of teams and athletes participating.After the 1996 Manchester...
and 2006 Commonwealth Games
2006 Commonwealth Games
The 2006 Commonwealth Games were held in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia between 15 March and 26 March 2006. It was the largest sporting event to be staged in Melbourne, eclipsing the 1956 Summer Olympics in terms of the number of teams competing, athletes competing, and events being held.The site...
and was part of Australia's winning 4 x 400 metres relay
4 x 400 metres relay
The 4 x 400 meters relay or long relay is an athletics track event in which teams comprise four runners who each complete 400 meters or one lap. It is traditionally the final event of a track meet. At top class events, the first 500 meters is run in lanes...
teams at both events.
Early career
Pittman attended Matthew Pearce Primary School and Mount Saint Benedict College in North Western Sydney. She is second cousin to diver Melissa Wu. She competed until April 2006 under her maiden name Pittman, then under her married name Rawlinson, and in 2009, following the breakdown of her marriage, as Pittman-Rawlinson.Pittman won the 400 m hurdles at the 1999 World Youth Championships in Athletics
1999 World Youth Championships in Athletics
The 1999 World Youth Championships in Athletics was the first edition of the World Youth Championships in Athletics. It was held in Bydgoszcz, Poland from July 16 to July 18, 1999.-Boys:-Girls:-Medals table:...
in Bydgoszcz and became treble champion in 200 m
200 metres
A 200 metres race is a sprint running event. On an outdoor 400 m track, the race begins on the curve and ends on the home straight, so a combination of techniques are needed to successfully run the race. A slightly shorter race, called the stadion and run on a straight track, was the first...
, 400 m and 400 m hurdles at the national championships of that year. In 2000, she became the first woman ever to win the 400 m flat and hurdles double at any IAAF or IOC championships - in this case, the 2000 World Junior Championships in Santiago
Santiago, Chile
Santiago , also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile, and the center of its largest conurbation . It is located in the country's central valley, at an elevation of above mean sea level...
(Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
).
Knee injury
Just before the Athens Olympics2004 Summer Olympics
The 2004 Summer Olympic Games, officially known as the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad, was a premier international multi-sport event held in Athens, Greece from August 13 to August 29, 2004 with the motto Welcome Home. 10,625 athletes competed, some 600 more than expected, accompanied by 5,501 team...
, Pittman tore her cartilage
Cartilage
Cartilage is a flexible connective tissue found in many areas in the bodies of humans and other animals, including the joints between bones, the rib cage, the ear, the nose, the elbow, the knee, the ankle, the bronchial tubes and the intervertebral discs...
in her right knee during a warm-up for a track meet in Zurich
Zürich
Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...
, where she had been favored to win the 400 m hurdles event. After undergoing surgery in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
only one week before the start of the games, she ran 5th in the final.
Negative public image
On 10 March 2006, quoted in an article in The Sydney Morning HeraldThe Sydney Morning Herald
The Sydney Morning Herald is a daily broadsheet newspaper published by Fairfax Media in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1831 as the Sydney Herald, the SMH is the oldest continuously published newspaper in Australia. The newspaper is published six days a week. The newspaper's Sunday counterpart, The...
, Pittman announced her intention to leave Australia, possibly for the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, after the negative publicity surrounding her knee and her disagreement with fellow athlete Tamsyn Lewis
Tamsyn Lewis
Tamsyn Carolyn Lewis is an Australian athlete and middle-distance runner, who has won a total of seventeen Australian Championships at 400 metres, 800 metres and 400m hurdles....
: "Since Athens, my image is all about drama and I hate it." Pittman said there had been a "mixed" response from the Australian public since the media dubbed their rivalry a "catfight" and a "bitchfight". She related that when she had been walking down the street a week earlier, a group of men in a car yelled out, "We love you, Tamsyn, we hate you, Pitts". "I didn't create that", the 400 m hurdler was quoted as saying. "I didn't want that". She also referenced the current edition of Ralph magazine at the time, in which Lewis posed in a bikini and which carried the tag line on the cover, "It's alright Tam, we don't like Jana Pittman either".
In the buildup to her races at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, Pittman was widely reported as being nervous about the possible crowd reaction in the wake of the negative publicity. However, the ovation of the home crowd was loud and long, both before and after the 400 m hurdles Final, and in interviews afterwards Pittman expressed her feelings of relief. The crowd response was strikingly different at a nightclub hosting post-games celebrations, where after an introduction she was booed off the stage.
2006 Commonwealth Games
At the Melbourne Commonwealth Games Jana Pittman successfully defended her two Commonwealth titles.4 x 400 m Relay
As at the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester, Pittman-Rawlinson was a member of Australia's gold medal-winning 4 x 400 m relay team (with Tamsyn Lewis, Caitlin Willis and Rosemary Hayward). However, the 2006 Aussie team was awarded the gold medal after the disqualification of the England team for a baton-change violation. Pittman later wrote a letter of apology to the English team and offered her gold medal to them. She blamed the disqualification on Lewis who, alongside Pittman, went up to the officials after the race to point out the violation of Englishwoman Natasha Danvers-Smith of taking an incorrect position on the starting leg. According to the ABC Sports Desk the officials were moving to disqualify England anyway. England head coach, Brad McStravick, in an interview with the ABCAustralian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...
TV program Offsiders, questioned Pittman's motivation for writing the letter: "I know she is going to spend, well, at least half the year in England and I think some of the girls wondered whether it was just to try and make peace, so that she wouldn't face any animosity once she was living and training in England," he said.
400 m Hurdles
Pittman won the 400 m hurdles title with a new Games record time of 53.82 seconds. This was her first major championship in the event since her 2004 knee injury and subsequent stress fractures in her back.Osaka 2007
After delivering Cornelis, Pittman had her wisdom teeth removed and a 10-week injury break with plantar fasciitis. Despite these difficulties, she ran well on the European circuit and comfortably won the 400 m Hurdles at the Osaka World Championships.She carried a slight injury through her 2007 season, having surgery later in the year to remove loose cartilage and floating bone fragments in the second toe of her right foot.
Pittman was pre-selected for the 2008 Australian Olympic team in late 2007.
Beijing 2008
In January 2008, Pittman was nominated for 'Comeback of the Year' at the Laureus World Sports AwardsLaureus World Sports Awards
The Laureus World Sports Awards are awarded annually to sportspeople who have been outstanding during the previous year. The Laureus World Sports Awards were established in 1999 by Founding Patrons Daimler and Richemont and is supported by its Global Partners Mercedes-Benz, IWC Schaffhausen and...
.
In February 2008, Pittman was quoted as saying she could visualise her win at the Beijing Olympics
2008 Summer Olympics
The 2008 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, was a major international multi-sport event that took place in Beijing, China, from August 8 to August 24, 2008. A total of 11,028 athletes from 204 National Olympic Committees competed in 28 sports and 302 events...
and that she would run a world record time. But on 9 July 2008, Pittman announced she would not be competing at the Beijing Games, because of the complications with the toe injury. The Australian
The Australian
The Australian is a broadsheet newspaper published in Australia from Monday to Saturday each week since 14 July 1964. The editor in chief is Chris Mitchell, the editor is Clive Mathieson and the 'editor-at-large' is Paul Kelly....
subsequently reported that a large number of Australians had "viciously turned against the fallen track star", strongly criticising her.
Injury problems
On 29 June 2009, Pittman returned to racing after more than a year with a victory in the Grand Prix event at MalagaMálaga
Málaga is a city and a municipality in the Autonomous Community of Andalusia, Spain. With a population of 568,507 in 2010, it is the second most populous city of Andalusia and the sixth largest in Spain. This is the southernmost large city in Europe...
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
. She won the 400 metre hurdles in a time of 55.67 seconds ahead of Ukrainian
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
Anastasiya Rabchenyuk
Anastasiya Rabchenyuk
Anastasiya Rabchenyuk is a Ukrainian hurdler.She was born in Ternovka, at the time in the Ukrainian SSR of the Soviet Union .She is a world top level 400m hurdles runner....
and Janet Wienand of South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
. However, she was not fit enough to defend her title at the 2009 World Championships
2009 World Championships in Athletics
The 12th IAAF World Championships in Athletics were held in Berlin, Germany from 15–23 August 2009. The majority of events took place in the Olympiastadion, while the marathon and racewalking events started and finished at the Brandenburg Gate....
. A hamstring
Hamstring
In human anatomy, the hamstring refers to any one of the three posterior thigh muscles, or to the tendons that make up the borders of the space behind the knee. In modern anatomical contexts, however, they usually refer to the posterior thigh muscles, or the tendons of the semitendinosus, the...
problem caused by bulging disc in her back interrupted her preparation for the tournament, but she was confident of a return, saying "I hope I can recover from this latest setback and get back on track for my long term goal and dream - winning Olympic Gold in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
in 2012
2012 Summer Olympics
The 2012 Summer Olympic Games, officially known as the "London 2012 Olympic Games", are scheduled to take place in London, England, United Kingdom from 27 July to 12 August 2012...
".
Another 20 months passed before her return to competition. In April 2011, she beat domestic rival Lauren Boden on the final leg of the Australian Athletics Tour.
Personal life
In May 2009 it was revealed that Pittman had undergone breast implant surgery. The following year she announced she'd had the implants removed as they had "affected her running", but would consider having her breasts augmented again once her athletic career was over.Marriage to Chris Rawlinson
On 31 March 2006, Pittman married English athlete Chris RawlinsonChris Rawlinson
Christopher Lee Rawlinson is a track and field athlete who competes in the 400 metre hurdles.He also appeared in the 1995 series of the popular TV series Gladiators....
at Morningstar Estate on the Mornington Peninsula
Mornington Peninsula
The Mornington Peninsula is a peninsula located south-east of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia. It is surrounded by Port Phillip to the west, Western Port to the east and Bass Strait to the south, and is connected to the mainland in the north. Geographically, the peninsula begins its protrusion...
, Victoria
Victoria (Australia)
Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....
. Rawlinson, also a specialist 400 m hurdler, coached Jana from 2004 - 2009. On 14 December 2006 she gave birth to the couple's first child, son Cornelis Levi. She later stated that she had gone for a hard twenty-minute run on the morning of the birth and "felt like a whale".
In April 2009 it was announced that Pittman and Rawlinson has separated after three years of marriage and in May 2009 she returned to training under Craig Hilliard who had previously coached her. In an interview on 24 October 2009 her new role as a single mother was described as "Jana's toughest hurdle".
In January 2010 it was announced that Pittman had been reconciled with Rawlinson and that they would remarry. On 31 March 2010, Pittman remarried Rawlinson in England, wearing an unconventional red wedding dress. However, on 16 April 2011 it was announced that Pittman and Rawlinson had split again.
External links
- Jana Pittman Official Website
- Athletics Australia profile
- Jana Rawlinson Pictures
- Icarus, Phoenix or Bumblebee: Jana's future flight path
- Awards and Biography
- SMH - Pittman to quit Australia
- Herald Sun - Jana takes drama abroad
- The Australian - Queen of Hearts
- Melbourne 2006 Official Site, final day Athletics news
- Herald Sun - Club turns on Pittman
- ABC: The Sports Desk - 'Blushing Bride'.
- The Age - 6 Aussie nominations for sports gongs
- IAAF Diaries: Jana Rawlinson
- SMH - It's all in her mind
- Japan looms as ideal base for Jana