Pearson proved herself the best Australia has seen in the modern era by winning gold in London and said she had unfinished Olympics business after being unable to compete at the Rio Olympics through injury. Hilliard said he had no reason to doubt her.

"Why not? If Sally wants to do it, she'll do it. It's as simple as that. If her body is healthy they are the only two ingredients. If she is still loving the sport then Sally keeps going," Hilliard said.

Australia had fewer top eight finishes than at the London World Championships than they had in Rio with five top eight finishes in London and nine in Rio but Hilliard said Rio was a good spike and while he was disappointing in the drop in London he was confident that Australia was tracking well.

"I'm satisfied. The performances of Sally and Dani were sensational," Hilliard said. "We didn't quite get the number of top eights we were after but we've got some young kids coming through.

"Kurtis Marschall (pole vault) was fantastic, some of our distance athletes like Patrick Tiernan (5000m) really competed out there ... and a big breakthrough for (javelin thrower) Kelsey-Lee Roberts.

"Dane Bird-Smith was fantastic. You could tell he was slightly off but to come out and walk a PB you can't ask for any more than that.

"Jared Tallent is not going anywhere. He's getting over his hamstring injury. He's not a younger athlete but he's going to be around for Tokyo. He definitely wants to do that."

Australia had a clutch of athletes who disappointed - world 2015 silver medallist long jumper Fabrice Lapierre, Olympic 1500m finalist Ryan Gregson and Olympic 200m semi-finalist Ella Nelson - while national 400m champion Morgan Mitchell admitted she was battling mental health problems.

"That's a typical post-Olympic year. We've seen a number of athletes here who were expected to win gold and they didn't. It's never going to be a linear progression for some of those athletes."