MELBOURNE - Olympic champion Anna Meares is confident she will prove her fitness before the Beijing Games after breaking her neck in a horrific fall in January.
The Australian, who has not raced since the crash in Los Angeles that left her with a fractured neck vertebrae, needs to clock a 200 metres time of 11.7 seconds at a track event in Melbourne on June 12 to be selected.
The 24-year-old, who had to withdraw from Australia's squad for the world championships in March, understands the situation.
"It is a gettable time, given my personal best is 11.1," Meares told reporters on Wednesday.
"I haven't done a time trial since I had my crash and only been working on my strength at the moment so the speed is lagging (and) that is something I will be working on in the next four weeks to make sure that 11.7 is done.
"It is totally understandable from the selectors point of view. They don't want to send someone who fractured their neck and hasn't raced to an Olympic Games."
Meares, the Athens 500m time trial champion and sprint bronze medallist, has been forced to concentrate on the sprint after her favoured time trial was dropped from the Beijing programme.
SOME TREPIDATION
She admits to some trepidation about getting back on a bike after her accident.
"The first thoughts were of the wheels slipping again and that was something they made me do when I got back on the track.
"I've been very up and down. I have had lots of tough times and lots of really good times as well.
"My team has been very good at keeping me in good spirits and they've kept me laughing and smiling and that has actually helped my recovery in the fact I wasn't constantly dwelling on the situation."
While the crash has upset her preparations for the August 8-24 Games, it has not affected her expectations.
"Everyone goes into an Olympic Games wanting to win and that is no different from me," Meares said. "But I'm not putting any added pressure on myself by saying 'you've got to win'.
"I'm going in there and faced with a challenge and have given my opponents a head start.
"But I have worked very hard to get where I am now and my expectation for Beijing is that I'm going in there to get it right and if I get it right the results should follow."
