Jana Rawlinson
Jana Rawlinson (born
November 9,
1982 in
Sydney as
Jana Pittman) is an
Australian athlete who specialises in the 200 m and 400 m hurdles events. She won gold in the
400m hurdles in the
2002 Commonwealth Games,
2006 Commonwealth Games and in the
2003 World Championships. She was also a member of Australia's gold medal-winning 4x400 m relay team at
Manchester in
2002 with
Tamsyn Lewis,
Cathy Freeman and
Lauren Hewitt. She won Gold in the 400m in the 2006 commonwealth games. She wore braces on her teeth until the day before her wedding.
Rawlinson, who competed until March
2006 under her maiden name
Pittman, has had a stellar athletics career in
Australia and in world competition since winning the 200 m, 400 m and 400 m hurdles at the Australian trials for the 1999 World Youth Championships. She won the 400 m hurdles at that Championships, and in
2000 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
Chile.
She is affectionately known as a
drama queen or "Jana Drama".
The Knee
Just before the Athens Olympics, Jana tore her cartilage in her right knee during a warm-up for a track meet in
Zurich. Pittman was favourite 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.
3.
Her teammate Lewis's criticism of the media publicity surrounding Jana and her knee (which received front page coverage in the tabloids) was the precursor for the current enmity between the two.
Negative Publicity Saga
On 10 March 2006, in an article in
The Sydney Morning Herald she 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." Jana said there had been a "mixed" response from the Australian public since Lewis dubbed their rivalry a "catfight" and a "bitchfight".
Jana said she had been walking down the street a week earlier when 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, Jana was widely reported as being nervous about the possible crowd reaction in the wake of the negative publicity detailed above. However, the ovation of the home crowd was loud and long, both before and after the 400 m hurdles Final, and in interviews afterwards Jana 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 stage
4.
2006 Commonwealth Games
At the
Melbourne Commonwealth Games Jana successfully defended her two Commonwealth titles.
4 x 400 m Relay
At as
Manchester, Jana was a member of Australia's 4x400m relay team (with
Lewis,
Caitlin Willis and
Rosemary Hayward), which was awarded the gold medal after the disqualification of the
England team for a baton-change violation
5.
She later wrote a letter of apology to the English team and offered her gold medal to them. Jana blamed the disqualification of England on Lewis who, with Jana, 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.
6. According to the ABC Sports Desk
7, the officials were moving to disqualify England anyway. England head coach, Brad McStravick, in an interview with the
ABC TV Program Offsiders, questioned Jana'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
8.
400 m Hurdles
Jana won the 400m 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.
Marriage to Chris Rawlinson
On
March 31st,
2006, Jana married
Chris Rawlinson at Morningstar Estate on the
Mornington Peninsula,
Victoria. Chris Rawlinson, also a specialist 400 m hurdles runner, has been Jana's personal coach since
2004. Like fellow Australian athlete
Lleyton Hewitt, the wedding photographs were exclusively sold to Australian women's magazine,
Woman's Weekly 7.
The Rawlinsons are expecting their first child near the end of
2006, having announced on
13 June that Jana fell pregnant during the Games in March. Jana has also announced that she will retire to concentrate on family life after the
Beijing Olympics.
*
Athletics Australia profile*
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'.
