Having taken the safety first approach ahead of next year's Olympic Games, Canberra middle-distance runner Emily Brichacek says she is capable of being in the mix at Rio.
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Brichacek is back recovering in Canberra having made the difficult decision to pull out of the 5000 metres at the world championships in Beijing.
The 24-year-old will miss between four to six weeks with a stress fracture in her leg.
Brichacek could have been out for up to three months if she had continued to race and snapped the tibia.
"I'm confident that if I can get my body right and learn from my mistakes, it will set me up really well for next year," Brichacek said.
"My goal for next season is to get as close to that 15-minute mark as I can and hopefully go under that.
"To be in the mix at a world level, that is the kind of time that I'm aiming for in the short term."
Brichacek has run the IAAF's qualifying time, but still needs strong performances during the Australian domestic season to guarantee a spot to her first Olympics.
With a personal best time of 15 minutes 19.06 seconds set in the US in May this year, Brichacek is aiming to break the 15-minute barrier to put herself in the running of contending on the world stage.
"Going into it this year, I knew I'd get so much from racing here to prepare me for Rio, in terms of exposure to that level of competition and the way the athletes conduct themselves," she said.
"But at the same time, I was like, if I go in and have a real negative experience, I don't think I'm going to get anything positive from that.
"If I knew I wasn't running well and was in a lot of pain, the worst thing for me would have had to be having to pull out because I wouldn't have enjoyed having to do that."
Brichacek trained with pain in her leg for about two weeks, but had a session in Japan where she began to limp in her running action.
"The option was do I keep pushing and have a week or two weeks until we go to the race, but with Rio next year, the more I ran on it, the worse it was going to get," she said.
"It was probably at the stage where it was going to take four to six weeks to recover.
"If I pushed it for another two weeks, it could break and cause a crack there and that's going to take 10 to 12 weeks and of course less and less time to prepare for Rio."
