Cook Takes Aim At London

4th March 2010

It's been a while since we've heard anything from Natalie Cook. Following the Beijing Olympics, Cook got married and promptly took a year off from competition.  Many thought her battered and bruised body had perhaps taken enough and that business interests would take over.  This morning though, on Nine's Today Show, Natalite Cook announced she is making a return to competition with the intention of qualifying for the London Olympics in 2012.

If she achieves this goal she will be attending her fifth Olympic Games after a bronze medal at Atlanta in 1996, gold at Sydney in 2000, a ridiculously brave fourth placing at Athens in 2004 and a fifth placing at Beijing just two years ago.   She will be again be playing with Tamsin Barnett-Hinchley who herself is just returning to training following the birth of her first child.

Her time as an ambassador at the Vancouver Olympic Games was apparently the trigger for Nat's desire to return to competition and have a crack at making it to London 2012.

No word just yet on whether they will be going on the journey independently or via the Australian Institute of Sport, nor when precisely they will be returning to competition.  Whatever way they go there's no doubt 'Cooky' (and Tamsin) will be giving it 150% as she attempts to achieve something very few athletes will ever do, five Olympic Games.

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