Olympic and world champion pole vaulter Steve Hooker will turn his attention to sprinting over the next few weeks after announcing on Tuesday that he'll contest next month's Stawell Gift.
Having just returned to Melbourne after last weekend adding the world indoor championship title to his amazing haul over the past 18 months, Hooker revealed that earlier this year he clocked 10.82 seconds over 100m, giving him confidence that he won't be completely out of place.
"It's a fantastic weekend, I've been up there many times before as a spectator and it's always been a dream to run there so with my big global championship out of the way already this year it's an opportunity where I can go there and have a bit of a different preparation," Hooker said on Tuesday.
"I'm going for fun but I'm a very competitive person so as soon as I get out there I'll be giving it my all to try and finish ahead of everyone else for sure."
Headed back to his home base in Perth for training in the lead-up to Australia's richest foot race, which is held over the Easter weekend at the start of April, Hooker believes his involvement will help with his pole vaulting because he needs to 'work' on his pace in his pet event.
But the 27-year-old, who admits that while he's a handy sprinter he needs to improve his starts and plans to seek help independent of his regular coach Alex Parnov if necessary, also defended his inclusion in the Stawell Gift.
Far from being a sign of how little depth there is in the ranks of Australian male sprinters, Hooker believes the 'team's looking very strong so there's no need to point out and pick on the sprinters or anything like that'.
"I think I'm the main event (at the Stawell Gift) because it's something different that I'm doing it, it's not the usual thing that I'd be doing," Hooker added.
"But that's the beauty of pro running, it gives everyone a chance so I can go out there and run against guys that are definitely better sprinters than me but I might have a chance."
Having joked that he hopes to 'get up a little bit more pace without the pole' and suggested he'd be happy to be off 7m in the handicap race, Hooker also turned his attention to the one thing he's still to do in the pole vault.
With the Olympic and indoor and outdoor world titles to his name and a personal best of 6.06m, Hooker's last major goal in the sport is to better Ukrainian Sergey Bubka's world record of 6.14m set more than 15 years ago in Italy.
"It's something that I'm always working towards and I'm always measuring myself against," he said of the world record.
"I felt like at the world championships I gave it a really, really good go. I felt like my jumps at 6.01m, had I done them at 6.16m, it could've been there."
"I've just got to make sure when the bar gets up to that height I maintain my consistency and my form and then I think I'm a chance."
"I haven't jumped over 6m in training, it takes that competitive atmosphere and the adrenalin to get up to those sort of heights."