Commonwealth Games: Sam Harding hopes luck is finally on his side

After needing to quarantine and withdraw from his event after contracting glandular fever during London 2012, the young athlete turned his eyes to Rio for a chance to finally make his Olympic debut.

His classification would then be cut from the 800 metre Rio schedule, with the vision impaired runner unable to meet the qualifying time for other events.

So when there was a chance that he may not have been able to compete in Tokyo, it felt like the world was against the Canberran.

"At one point I felt like I was going to be the unluckiest athlete that these two viruses, one stopped me from competing in London, the other was potentially going to stop the whole games," he said.

He would eventually qualify and compete in first Olympics, finishing 11th in his 1500 metre T13 event.

One year down the line and he is going to the Commonwealth Games, this time ditching athletics to compete in the Para-Triathlon, with his event taking place on Sunday.

To qualify for the event, luck needed to go Harding's way. For seemingly the first time in his career, it finally did.

"There were only two races where I could get qualifying points to go towards my world ranking and I managed to win them both," he said.

"I was actually a few points behind the second Australian, Gerrard Gosens, but it just so happened that my results were good and there were not too many other people in the Commonwealth.

"So I kind of got lucky because I was the third ranked Australian on points, but the quickest over those races."

Despite not meddling in his 1500 metre event in Tokyo, Harding takes great confidence from even making it to the Olympics. He has also learnt valuable lessons from the setbacks.

"I've learnt so much from not making teams all the time and just having these setbacks so you try to just not make the same mistake twice," he said.

"With the triathlons it is super cool, there's three different disciplines and events and you just try to focus on the process and tick one off at a time."

Heading into Birmingham, Harding has a few star British athletes in his sights.

"There are two really good British guys, one of them is Dave Ellis and he has been the world leader for the last six or seven years and he is just kind of untouchable it seems at the moment," he said.

"I was racing him in Spain about a month ago, and I was about two minutes and 30 seconds behind him. So hopefully I can get a bit closer but I have still got quite a bit to learn.

"They also have another younger boy called Oscar Kelly. It is going to be awesome to compete against them and then we have the world championships in November."