The Indecisiveness of Jana Rawlinson
Track and field’s hurdles events ask very little of its competitors. Run, jump, repeat. Speed with a dash of timing to make it more interesting. That’s it. While hurdling might be difficult to accomplish at a word-class level, it’s easy to understand. It’s clear among the hurdlers what is necessary and how to go about it successfully. No one is more thankful for this clarity of goal than Australia’s Jana Rawlinson.
Jana Rawlinson has trouble sticking with her decisions, you see.
Several weeks ago, the 2003 gold medalist in the 400m hurdles had her breast implants removed because she felt they impeded her ability to compete.
Hurdling: Built for speed not comfort.
“Every time I raced I panicked about whether I was letting my country down, all for my own vanity, ” Rawlinson said. “I absolutely loved having bigger boobs, but I don’t want to short-change Australia either.”
I’m not Australian, but how sure are we that Rawlinson isn’t short-changing her country now? I mean, she failed to compete in the Beijing Games 16 months ago and Australia seems to be over it. Don’t underestimate the importance of breasts down under.
That sentence didn’t turn out like I’d hope. A little dirtier than I imagined and I’m now imagining boobs down below the knees. I haven’t seen something like that since my neighbor Ethel died two years ago.
But Rawlinson’s impetuousness doesn’t stop at the chest. Let’s travel about 18 inches higher to Mrs. Rawlinson’s brain – where all the action is.
Although I feel confident that spending $13,000 on two surgeries in 14 months and having only incision scars to show for it is enough to convince you she ought to sleep on a few more decisions in her life, the story of Rawlinson’s frontcourt is secondary to the story of her time spent in divorce court.
Rawlinson is preparing to get married a second time just as soon as the divorce from her previous marriage is finalized. The catch here is that the man she is engaged to and the man she is in the process of divorcing are the same man, hurdles coach Chris Rawlinson.
They split in April and by December they had decided that the divorce was a mistake. by the time Rawlinson came to that decision, both parties had put ink to paper. Non-erasable ink on divorce agreement paper. Unfortunately, couples cannot legally wed until they are legally divorced and a couple cannot legally be divorced until all appropriate paperwork is filed.
The paperwork was filed this week, so the happily divorced couple can become the impetuous, near-sighted, devil-amy-care wedded couple they were sorta destined to be.
Let’s hope Mrs. Rawlinson keeps running a straight line and timing her hurdles just right. Without that, who knows where she’ll end up?
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Photos courtesy of Flickr
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