Steven Hooker

Nickname

Steve, Hobbsy, Hooksy. (vis.org.au, 16 Jul 2007)

Hobbies

He enjoys managing property, playing golf, reading, listening to music and skydiving. (vis.org.au, 16 Jul 2007; athletics.com.au, 13 Aug 2011)

Occupation

Athlete

Education

Business - Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Melbourne, VIC, AUS

Language(s) spoken

English

Club name

Box Hill Athletics Club and WAIS, Melbourne, VIC, AUS

Coach

Alex Parnov (RUS) (sbs.com.au, 12 May 2012)

Sporting relatives

He is an amateur sprinter and he competed in the 2010 Stawell Gift race. The event is held every Easter weekend at Central Park in Western Victoria. The race is run on grass over 120m up a slight gradient. (iaaf.org, 03 Aug 2010; stawellgift.com, 03 Aug 2010) He played Australian Rules football before concentrating on pole vault. (Athletics Australia, 05 Apr 2004)

Other sports

His mother Erica Hooker [nee Nixon] was a 1972 Olympian and a Commonwealth Games long jump silver medallist. His father, Bill, was a four-time national title holder and represented Australia in the 400m, 400m hurdles, 800m and 4x400m. (Athletics Australia, 05 Apr 2004)

Debut

2000 for Australia (athletics.com.au, 13 Aug 2011)

Injuries

He suffered an injury to his left knee that affected him in 2010 and 2011. (thestar.com.my, 01 Dec 2011)

When he won gold at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin he needed local anaesthetic to cope with his injured adductor [thigh muscle]. (stevehooker.com.au, 23 Aug 2009)

He sat out the 2002 season after suffering patella tendonopathy and a number of back problems. (american-trackandfield.com, 16 Jul 2007)

Additional information

Start of sporting career
He began the sport aged 15. (Australian Athlete, November 2000)

Reason for taking up this sport
He was influenced by Emma George, Australia's former world pole vault record holder, who trained at the same venue. "I basically started because of Emma, I saw her down here and it drew my attention to the event. It also seemed like a fair bit of fun so I asked Mark [his coach] if I could have a go." (Australian Athlete, November 2000)

Ambitions
To defend his 2008 Olympic title at London in 2012. (vis.org.au, 2012)

Training
In an average week he will complete three weight sessions, two vault sessions, two running sessions, one gymnastics session and an extra session of yoga or swimming. (american-trackandfield.com, 16 Jul 2007)

Most memorable sporting achievement
Winning gold at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and at the same time breaking the Olympic record [5.96m]. On home soil he cites winning gold in front of a home crowd at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, Australia as his most memorable achievement. (stevehooker.com.au, 03 Aug 2010; american-trackandfield.com, 16 Jul 2007)

Sporting philosophy / motto
"There's no such thing as failure. It's all part of the journey." (vis.org.au, 16 Jul 2007)

Awards
In 2009 and 2010 he was the only international athletics athlete to hold all of the available titles at the same time. They included Olympic, world, world indoor, Continental Cup and Commonwealth Games. He is the only Australian athlete to achieve this. (athletics.com.au, 13 Aug 2011)

He was the team Captain for the Australian Flame athletics team at the 2009 World Championships and the 2010 Commonwealth Games. (athletics.com.au, 13 Aug 2011)

He was the first Australian field athlete to win an Olympic gold medal in 60 years at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. (stevehooker.com.au, 23 Aug 2009)

He was named the 2005 City of Whitehorse Athlete of the Year on the basis of his finishing 2005 with a personal best of 5.87 metres which broke a long standing Victorian record. (whitehorse.vic.gov, 28 Oct 2005)

General
CONFIDENCE LOW LEADING INTO LONDON
In Februray 2012 he spoke about how he'd lost his confidence on the field, which he attributed in part to an ongoing knee injury that had troubled him for 18 months. He decided not to compete in domestic competition in the lead up to the London Olympic Games. "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. As frustrating and puzzling as it might be, I'm certain it is only a temporary situation which I can resolve over the coming months and make it to London to defend my Olympic crown in August." (couriermail.com.au, 09 Feb 2012)

'BAT CAVE' TRAINING
His sponsor Red Bull and the West Australian Government helped him to set up an indoor training facility at the old Midland Railway Yards in Perth which he refers to as his 'bat cave'. The shed has a 100m runway with a pit at each end. Platforms can be adjusted to alter jump conditions and a video-feedback system records his jumps and analyses the data. "We are away from everyone so there's no one watching. It's just my team of coaches, sports psychologist and biomechanist there and we can do really efficient high-quality sessions every day of the week.There are no interruptions from other people in other events, from the weather or restrictions to training hours." (heraldsun.com.au, 11 Apr 2012)

HIGH-PROFILE RELATIONSHIP
At the 2008 Olympic Games he met Russian Olympic runner Ekaterina Kostetskaya and the pair began a relationship. Since 2009 she spends half a year in Australia where the pair train together, and Steve has also visited Russia. (iaaf.org, 11 Aug 2011; perthnow.com.au, 03 Aug 2010)

Previous Olympics

Beijing 2008, Athens 2004