Jane Saville at 2002 Commonwealth Games (© Getty Images)
Heartbreak race walker Jane Saville yesterday committed herself to the long march to the next Olympic Games where she intends to finish what she started in Sydney.
With 100,000 people inside Stadium Australia waiting to cheer her to gold, Saville was well ahead and less than 150m from the finish line when the chief judge disqualified her from the Olympic 20km walk.
It is now less than two years before the flame is re-ignited in Athens on August 13, 2004 and Saville intends to be there on unfinished business.
“I wouldn't be training if I didn't think I could win there (in Athens) and I wouldn't do it if I didn't want to,'' Saville declared.
“Absolutely. I wouldn't be challenging if I didn't think I could do it.''
She found a paler shade of redemption in the form of another gold medal at the Commonwealth Games this year, but she knows salvation in full hue can only be claimed in Athens.
Life wasn't meant to be easy for walkers, tortured by teasing, and tormented even by the International Olympic Committee who, in November next year, will meet to consider dropping the walk from the Beijing Games and beyond.
International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) spokesman Nick Davies said last night: “The IAAF are going to fight tooth and nail to keep walks in the program.
“Our view is that athletics is made up a number of disciplines, and all of them are sacred, including the walk.''
But as one door is prised open, another closed for Australia's champion walkers when Ronny Weigel quit the Australian Institute of Sport immediately after the Manchester Games to take a top coaching position in Germany.
“I wasn't upset. I wasn't worried,'' Saville said.
The reason being her husband, Matt White, a Sydney Olympic and two-times Commonwealth Games representative cyclist, has been taking an increasingly influential role in her coaching over the last three years.
“Even in 2000 Matt was helping me. When I was injured and couldn't go with Ron to train in Mexico before the Olympics, Matt was on the phone from Italy every day,'' Saville said.
“We worked out a fitness program in the pool and on the bike. He was so positive.
“The first thing he said after I got disqualified was: `Look what you've done. You can mix it with the best. Look to next year.'
“That's the big thing, the confidence. I've learned so much since the Olympics.''
Another thing Saville appears to have developed is independence and the responsibility which comes with that to make the training succeed.
A professional cyclist contracted to five-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong's US Postal team, White chalks up huge distances in his own training, far more than Saville's 230km a week maximums.
She can find herself left to complete training walks around their European base in Valencia in Spain or around Sydney.
As for the issue of White correcting the technique which caused her Olympic disqualification, Saville said: “Matt's had to learn about my event otherwise I wouldn't have survived technically.
“I'm 100 per cent confident in my technique. I didn't get one warning in six races this year.''
The issue now is for them to reduce her Manchester time of 96min down to around the 88min mark - 1min faster than the Sydney gold medal time - and both are confident they can pool their knowledge to achieve that.
“I'm not telling her how to change, just whether what she's trying to do is working or not,'' White said, “Whether she's driving her hips properly, whether her shoulders are tight or her stride is short.
“Coaching is not about programming: it's about getting the most out of the athlete and to do that you have to know the athlete - their strengths and weaknesses.''