CRAZY or courageous?

Even beach volleyball legend Natalie Cook doesn't know which one applies to her decision to try for her fifth Olympics in London in 2012.

All the 35-year-old Brisbanite knows is that she can't stay away.

Cook, who had been relishing a post-Beijing break, said she had been seriously thinking of a return to elite competition since Christmas.

But it was her trip to Vancouver to see the Winter Olympics first hand that finally sealed the deal.

"I was literally sitting in the opening ceremony with tears in my eyes thinking, 'how could I not go back to this?'," she said.

"But five will be the limit. I'll hang up the bikini at five."

Cook was 21 when she won bronze with Kerri Pottharst at Atlanta in 1996.


She backed it up with a gold in Sydney four years later.

After Pottharst retired, Cook made the semi-finals with Nicole Sanderson in Athens in 2004, before teaming with Tamsin Barnett for fifth in Beijing.

"I took last year off completely, but I started back in the gym in December," Cook said.

"I've been physically preparing for the last three months pending the decision to play."

If successful, Cook, who is hosting the Australian beach volleyball championships at her business Sandstorm Beach Club from next Friday, will become the first woman to have contested five summer Olympics.

But, at 37 in 2012 and with a massive shoulder injury behind her and niggling knee concerns, she is well aware the path to Games glory will not be easy.

Cook said she had discussed her comeback with her physiotherapist and masseuse and all believed she was physically up to the challenge.

She said her comeback was also contingent on again teaming with Melbourne-based Barnett, who had her first child in September.

"It's very difficult to build chemistry so I knew she was my only option and she said she would only have played with me as well," Cook said.

The Australian Beach Volleyball Championships are on at Sandstorm Beach Club at the Queensland Sport and Athletic Centre next Friday, Saturday and Sunday (March 12, 13 and 14).

Reprinted from Brisbane's Courier Mail...