That winning feeling

By Marc McGowan
HARKAWAY Olympian Jeff Riseley maintained his unbeaten record since Beijing with victory at last Thursday night’s Melbourne World Athletics Tour meeting at Olympic Park.
The 22-year-old beat an impressive 1500m field of Australians and internationals for his seventh win since last August’s Olympic Games.
Riseley’s time of 3:40.29 saw him finish more than half-a-second clear of New South Welshman Jeremy Roff, who he expects to be his major rival at this month’s Australian Athletics Championships.
Riseley shot to the front at the start of the final lap and kicked away in the final 100 metres.
“I’ve won seven in a row now, so it’s always good to keep that going,” he said.
“We thought it’d be a bit faster than what it was, but the pace wasn’t quite what we expected.
“Obviously, 3:36.2 is the world championship A-qualifier, so anything under that would have been nice.
“But we’re not putting any emphasis on that. I think I can go a lot faster than that when we go to Europe and get in a fast race.”
Riseley will compete over a mile at the International Track Meet in New Zealand on Friday before attempting to claim his maiden senior national title in Queensland next week.
“The nationals is just about winning, so times are generally irrelevant and generally quite slow,” he said.
“I’m still yet to win a senior national title, so that’d be really good (if I could) – that’s been the goal all season.”
The World Athletics Championships is in Berlin, Germany, from 15 to 23 August, but Riseley has plenty of work ahead before then.
The Knox athlete has battled a hernia over the past four months and will have surgery to fix the problem after the national championships.
He does not expect there to be an extended recovery period after the surgery and is aiming to head to the United States or Europe at the end of May or in early June.
“It hasn’t stopped me from running, it’s just discomfort,” Riseley said.
“I get up in the morning and go for a run after a hard session the previous day and it locks right up and it doesn’t like gym too much, so it will be good to get that fixed.”
He was also caught up in the recent bushfires, with two houses burning down in his street.
Riseley’s home emerged unscathed, but he described the experience as ‘quite scary’.
“Mum got the three horses out and the cats and dogs and birds and took all the photo albums and stuff,” he said.
“She got out and me, my brother, my uncle, my dad and a mate of mine got the house ready – we got all the hoses, buckets and wet towels.
“I’d run 20km in the morning then I was running around like a maniac all that night.”
But Riseley is maintaining his focus as he sets about chasing down his lofty goals.
“I really want to break Ralph Doubell’s (Australian 800m) record. That’s a big goal of mine, along with the 1500m record – that’d be fantastic,” he said.
“The 1500m is probably going to be my better event, but … if I keep improving over 1500m naturally my 800m will improve and vice versa.
“It’d be good to have the versatility to choose which race suits when and where and not just have to repeatedly race the one event all the time.”