Sally Pearson struggling to find her form after injury

SALLY Pearson’s frustrating return from a serious wrist injury has continued, clocking her second 13-second-plus performance in a week.

Australia's Sally Pearson is struggling to regain her form ahead of the Rio Olympics.

LESS than two months out from the Olympics, Sally Pearson has recorded two runs outside the 13-second barrier in a week on return from her serious wrist injury.

The 2012 London Olympic gold medallist could only manage to finish seventh in a time of 13.14sec at a Diamond League event in Norway on Thursday (Friday AEST), beating only the disqualified Alina Talay of Belarus who false-started.

Her time was 0.68sec behind eventual winner Brianna Rollins of the United States, and came after what she labelled a “disgusting” 13.25sec in Birmingham last weekend.

She also recorded a wind-assisted time of 12.92 at a small event in Paris two days ago.

Pearson spent exactly a year on the sidelines after she dislocated and broke 12 bones in her wrist last June, but has long remained confident of a successful Olympic return and will compete again in Stockholm next week.

Meanwhile Australian Luke Mathews’ hopes for dual-selection at Rio continue to firm, winning his first international 1500m race at the same meet.

The 20-year-old has already qualified for the 800m event at the Olympics, but did not run the longer race at the Australian National Championships before recording a qualifying-sufficient time last month.

And now he is hopeful that Thursday’s win in the non-Diamond League race will help him further push his case for nomination next month.

“I want the chance to run both events,” Mathews said.

“I really wanted the win today and the plan came together, it worked.” Mathews time of 3:37.99 was two seconds outside of the mark he ran in the Netherlands last year to make him Olympics eligible. Australia already has one 1500m runner confirmed for the Rio Games in Ryan Gregson, who finished fifth in the Diamond League Dream Mile race at the same venue.

Genevieve LaCaze recorded a personal best time and became the fourth fastest Australian in history with a 9:30.52 in the 3,000m steeplechase to finish sixth.

She was 14 seconds quicker than fellow-Aussie Madeline Hills, who recorded her second best ever time of 9:24.73 in the same event, while javelin thrower Hamish Peacock also recorded his second best mark of 84.25m to finish fourth.

Rio-bound women’s 400m runner Morgan Mitchell finished fifth in her race with a time of 51.92, while Brittany McGowan and Selma Kajan ran seventh and 10th respectively in the women’s 800m. Victorian Brett Robinson finished 14th in the men’s 5000m, 36 seconds behind winner Yomif Kejelcha of Ethiopia.

Originally published as Sally Pearson struggling to find her form after injury