Jana drama culminates in gold

After months of controversy, Australian Jana Pittman won gold in the women’s 400m hurdles at the MCG tonight, putting any doubts of her popularity behind her by whipping the 83,000 strong crowd into a frenzy.

Pittman’s gold was one of three for Australia tonight, with Scott Martin taking out the men’s discus and Heath Francis claiming gold in the men’s 200m EAD event for those with an arm amputation above the wrist.

But all eyes were on Pittman, who had a testing build up to the Games with a running verbal stoush with teammate Tamsyn Lewis, threats of not running for Australia in the future and her failure to run with the Queen’s baton due to concerns over her hamstring.

Despite all the negative press, Pittman was cheered loudly before the start of the race, in which she was the favourite.

She started well, and looked to be in a commanding position halfway through the race.

England’s Natasha Danvers-Smith challenged her around the final bend, but Pittman saw her off to win in a Games record 53.82 seconds ahead of Danvers-Smith, with Scotland’s Lee McConnell taking bronze.

Australia’s Sonia Brito came eighth.

Later in the night, Martin hit the lead in the final round of the discus with a throw of 63.48 metres, with throws from the previous leader Jason Tunks and third-placed Dariusz Slowick to come.

But the two burly Canadians couldn’t match Martin’s effort, with Tunks taking silver and Slowick bronze.

Martin – who has become somewhat of an unlikely cult hero due to his appearances in advertising leading up to the Games – started off well with a first-round throw of 61.34 metres, and was second behind Tunks until the fifth round.

But the boy from Wodonga produced the goods to claim his second medal of the Games following his bronze in the shot put on Monday night.

Australia’s other competitors didn’t threaten, with Benn Harradine coming in eighth and Aaron Neighbour finishing 11th.

Afterwards, Martin revealed that it was coach Gus Puopolo’s plan to save his biggest effort for the last throw.

“We had a plan to go after the last throw and use (rounds) four and five as a stepping stone,” Martin said. “The plan wasn’t for Dariusz (Slowick) to come in and steal the silver in that time, but you have to adjust and we were working towards the last throw and I had faith in Gus and I had faith in myself… and I just nailed it.”

In the men’s 200m T46 category race, Francis came from behind on the final straight to claim gold in 22.98 seconds, ahead of Nigeria’s Godwin Mbakara and South Africa’s David Roos, while Australia’s Timothy Matthews came in seventh.

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