Head coach Craig Hilliard has acknowledged Australia could come away from the world athletics championships without any medals for the first time in 24 years.
With long-time standard bearer Sally Pearson absent due to a broken wrist, the 45-strong Australian team for the August 22-30 world titles in Beijing will be without a "rock star" presence, the type of athlete who transcends the sport.
Hilliard stressed it was only the nature of Jared Tallent's chosen discipline that prevented the multiple Olympic and world walking medallist being spoken of in the same manner as Pearson.
"There is no question in terms of what Jared has achieved and is still capable of achieving - he sits right up there in my mind," said Hilliard.
"The number of medals he's won and the way he performs whenever it counts - he's a phenomenal athlete."
But Hilliard acknowledged medals would be very hard to come by for Australia at the iconic Bird's Best Stadium in Beijing.
"I would love three medals but, in reality, we could end up with zero," the new head coach said on Thursday.
"I don't necessarily see that's going to be a failure - we are in a transition period now.
"This team is basically going to be the team for Rio with a few additions."
The squad includes several genuine medal hopes including javelin thrower Kim Mickle - who was second two years ago in Moscow - 2009 discus gold medallist Dani Samuels and Tallent, along with smokeys such as long jumper Fabrice Lapierre.
"It's tough at the top, it's tough to get medals, but if you are hovering around that fourth or fifth ranking in the world, you've got to go in with an expectation that you are going to medal," said Hilliard.
"The realism is that we don't have a lot of medal chances - that's reality.
"There's no point in me sitting here rolling out a bunch of six other athletes, going 'they're a medal chance, they're a medal chance' and they're not.
"Hopefully, we can move a bunch of those athletes such as (pole vaulter Alana Boyd and discus thrower Benn Harradine) into that top eight and closer to the medal mark."
Hilliard acknowledged there would be pressure from the Australian Sports Commission if Australia had no podium finishers in Beijing, especially with the inevitable comparison with the swimming team, who claimed seven golds at the recent world titles in Russia.
The absence of Pearson means it will be only the third time in the past 20 years that an Australian team has competed at a world championships, Olympics or Commonwealth Games without a marquee athlete such as Pearson, Jana Pittman, Steve Hooker or Cathy Freeman at the peak of their powers.
"I don't think it detracts from it. It allows those athletes, who are carrying the weight of the team on their shoulders, it gives them an opportunity to go out there and strut their stuff again and hopefully go a bit better," said Hilliard, who took over as head coach in April.
Hilliard replaced Eric Hollingsworth, who was sacked following the controversial Glasgow Commonwealth Games campaign when he publicly slammed Pearson on the eve of her 100m hurdles title defence.
Australia won three medals at the 2013 world championships.
The only time they failed to win any medals was the 1991 world titles in Tokyo.
Share
