Olympian Michelle Jenneke confident of beating Sally Pearson

Olympian Michelle Jenneke believes she has the chance to beat Olympic gold medallist Sally Pearson for the first time.

Michelle Jenneke, centre, competes in the 100m hurdles in Canberra yesterday.

Cult hero and Rio Olympian ­Michelle Jenneke believes she has the chance to beat Olympic gold medallist Sally Pearson for the first time in the 100m hurdles at the looming national titles after clocking her first sub-13-second race at the Canberra Grand Prix yesterday.

Jenneke was both frustrated and buoyed when she clocked 12.99sec on the Australian Institute of Sport track, her fastest time since last year’s Olympic trials, but 0.01sec short of the qualifying time for this year’s world championships.

But after six months’ training with Pearson’s former coach Ash Mahoney, Jenneke believes there is more to come at the ­national titles in Sydney later this month.

That is where she is scheduled to race Pearson, who is on the comeback trail from the injury that ruled her out of last year’s Olympics.

In her absence, Jenneke took the national title last year (12.93sec) and she’s determined to defend it against all-comers.

“I’m really not sure (I can win), it’s been a little while since I’ve raced Sal, but I’m going to go into that race believing that I can win it no matter who is there,’’ she said.

“It was really good to get out there and get under that 13-second barrier (today), that’s a really good goal to achieve.”

Pearson returned to inter­national competition last month, running a series of 60m hurdles races on the European grand prix circuit, but she was disappointed in her first hitout over 100m ­hurdles at the Queensland titles, where she clocked 13.57sec.

She withdrew from the Canberra meet to pack in more training before the national titles and it’s now clear she will need to improve dramatically if she is to retain her domestic supremacy.

Since a disappointing Olympic debut in Rio, Jenneke has been splitting her time between her ­native Sydney and the Gold Coast so she can work with Mahoney, who Pearson left last August.

Jenneke, who came to fame courtesy of the quirky dance routine she does as part of her race warm-up, said the new coaching relationship was working well.

“Training’s going really well,’’ she said. “Some people questioned whether it could work but it’s the happiest I’ve been in a while and I think it’s really doing good things for me.’’

Jenneke said Mahoney had worked particularly on her sprinting technique and her fitness.

Earlier, Olympic 200m semi-finalist Ella Nelson made short work of the world championships qualifying standard in her pet event, winning her opening race of the season in 23.00sec.

The best race of the day came in the women’s 1500m where Olympic semi-finalists Linden Hall and Jenny Blundell went head-to-head in tough, windy conditions that ruled out a qualification attempt. Hall, who has been the form runner of the season, held off a series of late surges from Blundell, to win in 4:12.33 and will now chase her first national title in Sydney.

Olympic 400m semi-finalist Morgan Mitchell, 400m hurdles specialist Lauren Wells and former world discus champion Dani Stevens (nee Samuels) also registered world championships qualifiers in Canberra on Saturday.

Mitchell was impressive as she clocked her fastest time on Australian soil (51.66) while Wells broke 56 seconds for the first time this season (55.97) and Stevens extended her record of consistent excellence (64.79m) .

Meanwhile, at the Triathlon World Cup event in Mooloolaba, Luke Willian and Emma Jackson gave the Australian team a double victory as they prepared for the first Commonwealth Games trial in next month’s World Series race on the Gold Coast.