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SYDNEY: Australia's reigning Olympic pole vault champion SteveHooker is set for the London Games after clearing the qualifyingheight in Perth. Hooker, 29, making his first competitive outing in three months,cleared 5.72 metres on his second attempt to secure his berth at athird Olympics. A persistent knee injury and an accompanying lack of confidence hadthreatened to derail his Olympic campaign earlier this year. But Hooker easily cleared the required qualifying height in aspecially sanctioned meet held in his own purpose-built indoortraining facility before an invited-only crowd of around 150supporters. Hooker high-fived the crowd and hugged his coach Alex Parnov aftersuccessfully completing the 5.72m jump to huge relief after aturbulent few months. "I'm very relieved but at the same time so damn excited," Hookertold the Athletics Australia website. "For a while there I thought I was a shoo-in to make London andlosing that certainty and having to fight like I have to get backwas a challenge I didn't see coming. It is something that I am juststoked to have gotten over." Hooker said qualification was the culmination of months of hardtraining to get back to his top form. "It has been months and months of jumps, jumps and more jumps --thousands of jumps, seriously -- to be back at this level," hesaid. "We stripped it right back to basics, made a real effort to get thethings that were letting me down right and from there begun theprocess of building my heights up." Hooker will now return to international competition, starting withthe second round of the Diamond League in Shanghai next weekend. "This (qualification) is great, but it is only one thing on theroad to London," he said. "I now need to get into the rhythm of competing again, and doingthat in conditions where not all the variables are controlled. "That's why I'm looking forward to Shanghai and then Europe as itwill be where I can continue to develop before the Games insituations that are out of my power and against athletes that willchallenge me the whole way to London." Hooker won the Olympic gold medal in Beijing in 2008, the 2009world title, the 2006 and 2010 Commonwealth Games gold medals andthe 2010 world indoor championships. - AFP/al. The e-commerce company in China offers quality products such as Lip Balm Containers Manufacturer , China Cosmetic Packaging Containers, and more. For more , please visit Cosmetic Glass Containers today!
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