10:16p.m. 23rd February 2008

| By Peter Gardiner

Alana Boyd is ecstatic after becoming an Olympic qualifier with her pole vault jump of 4.45 metres. Photo: Chris McCormack/172989b

The scream as she fell back to earth was almost primal – as raw as the blow-torch heat that Alana Boyd had been feeling until that moment.

A moment that may propel the pole-vaulter into the Olympic Games in Beijing.

In front of an ecstatic home “crowd” of at least 20 maybe 30 – competitors included – Boyd got a gargantuan gorilla off her back.

But only just. At the University of the Sunshine Coast track, when most competitors at the local meet had gone home for the day, she cleared the A qualifier mark of 4.45m she needed to be in contention for Australian selection.

Her third and final attempt at the height, with the Brisbane athletics officials looking on to ratify the attempt, was sheer ugliness.

Her take off was a shambles, but her anxious power sent her almost over the bar.

She breasted the thin barrier – and her hopes there and then got the wobbles.

“As I went over the bar and was falling back I looked up and saw it moving – I thought ‘oh no it’s coming down’. And then I saw it stay there.”

And then she hit the thick landing mats and let out the short, sharp scream – more relief than joy.

As she came back to her father and coach Ray and former athletic great mother Denise, she said: “My boobs almost got in the way.” Then it was: “Thanks Daddy” before high-fiving her mentor.

After trying to compose herself, Boyd, 23, then decided to “go for broke” and set the bar at 4.60m to snare another A qualifier that would almost compel selectors to have her Beijing-bound.

One more such quality jump and winning the national title in Brisbane next week would make her an automatic inclusion.

But her next two attempts failed to get off the ground as she declared she was “done for today”.

By then, a strong southerly cross wind had sprung up, cooling the oppressive heat that Boyd had declared worse than one Osaka meet where she had felt the pinch badly. “I like it hot but not this bloody hot,” she said.

A lesser athlete could have melted down under such conditions – the sizzling mercury and the weight of her own expectations that have held her down since last year. Since setting her personal best in Perth of 4.55m, a back injury had “got me into bad habits” that are now clearly in the past.

“That was really ugly,” she said of her successful vault, “but the good thing about it is that I was able to muscle my way through.”

She had been clearing 4.55 regularly in training in recent times and had a best clearance of 4.56m, but admitted that doing it in competition was becoming an issue.