Sally Pearson has stood down from the Athletics Australia board to focus all her attention on chasing a second Olympic gold medal at the 2020 Tokyo Games.
The 2012 Olympic 100m hurdles gold medallist and dual world champion is on the verge of returning to competition for the first time since pulling out of last year's Gold Coast Commonwealth Games due to a Achilles tendon injury.
Pearson, 32, plans to begin her comeback in a flat 100m at a Queensland club meet in the first weekend of March.
Next on the agenda are 100m hurdles races at the Queensland state titles the following week, the Queensland Track Classic on March 23 and the national championships in Sydney in early April.
Pearson will be targeting an unprecedented third individual title at the world championships in Doha beginning in late September,.
But her biggest goal of all is finishing atop the podium at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
"I learnt a lot and had a really good time but I realised I needed to just focus on myself," she said of the decision to step aside as an AA director after just six months in the role.
"I had to be selfish and my priority, physically and mentally, had to be all about Tokyo.
"It's definitely something I will look at again once my career has finished."
Pearson missed the 2016 Rio Olympics with a hamstring injury.
Shirley Strickland is the only Australian track and field athlete to win the same event twice at Olympic level, having claimed gold in the 80m hurdles in 1952 and 1956.
Australian Associated Press
