Hurdler Sally McLellan tells the story behind the picture

Olympic 100m hurdles silver medallist Sally McLellan took time out to chat to spikesmag.com about this eye-catching pic of her by the beach...

"I think the picture was taken ahead of the World Championships in Osaka and they [Athletics Australia] wanted to do something totally different, something totally casual showing your athleticism in a totally different light. I live in the Gold Coast, which is a big beachy area, and they wanted to capture where I lived as well.

"That day started off well. I trained in Brisbane doing relay training an hour north of where I live. We were doing relay training for the World Championships and I rushed from training and just chucked some clothes on.

"The shoot was taken on Main Beach, which is about five minutes down the road from my house I go there quite a lot. It's one of the easiest beaches to get to it's secluded and just down the road from Surfer's Paradise.

"Australians are all brought up around the water and we all have to learn how to swim. If you are Australian and don't know how to swim there is something wrong.

"If you look closely at the picture my jeans are really wet because I'm soaking wet almost to my neck. We were going over and over again [setting up that scene] I've never jumped so much and it was on sand – it was like a plyometric session.  My jeans were dragging along the sand it was like a full on training session. I think that shot was one of the first ones we ever did, so we did a lot of shots for no reason. Probably a few hundred shots were taken.

"I love photographers when they want to do something different. I'm not too keen on the ones that want to take a shot of me down the track stretching because that's not going to capture anyone's attention in a newspaper. I love photographers who are a bit daring and I love this shot, for sure."