Jana Rawlinson remains hopeful of defending her 400m hurdles world title in August, despite separating from her husband and coach.

Rawlinson, 26, confirmed on Monday she is battling to save her marriage to her husband of three years, former Commonwealth 400m hurdles champion Chris Rawlinson.

The couple have been based in Canberra with their two-year-old son Cornelis since late 2008, but Jana Rawlinson has spent the last week in Sydney with her parents.

She has done a couple of training sessions in Sydney with Penny Gillies, coach of 400m star Joel Milburn. But she will make no decision on who will take on the coaching duties in the lead-up to the world titles in Berlin in August until the personal issues are resolved.

Rawlinson has not raced in more than 12 months due to complications from a toe injury which ruled her out of the Beijing Olympics. She has yet to announce when she will return to competition.

"Berlin is still on the agenda for Jana," said Athletics Australia high performance manager Eric Hollingsworth, who spoke to Rawlinson on Tuesday morning.

"She's training, so it's just a question of putting the miles in the bank to get her in a position to perform at the level she wants to perform at.

"As far as I'm concerned, she's running, she's training, she's doing her sessions.

"She's just got to now get in a position to where she can perform at her normal level.

"How long that takes is dependant on how the adaptation processes take place."

Less than two years after meeting at the Athens Olympics, Jana and Chris Rawlinson married shortly after she won a second Commonwealth title in Melbourne in 2006.

The following year she joined Cathy Freeman as the only Australians to win a second world track and field title when she raced to victory in the 400m hurdles in Osaka with her husband as coach.

That triumph came less than nine months after the birth of Cornelis and with an injury-interrupted build-up.

Hollingsworth said he would speak to Rawlinson again on Friday once she returned to Canberra.

"She hasn't moved to Sydney, she's in Sydney getting some support from her family," said Hollingsworth.

"While she's in Sydney she wanted to do some training sessions so she's gone to a familiar face (Gillies) to just hold the stopwatch and see her do a couple of sessions."

Rawlinson has previously been coached by Craig Hilliard and Phil King, husband of 1988 Olympic champion Debbie Flintoff-King.

Chris Rawlinson, 36, won the 2002 Commonwealth 400m hurdles title representing England. He announced late last year he wanted to make a comeback and race for Australia at the Berlin world titles.

But he did not compete at the world championship trials in Brisbane in April, preferring to remain in Canberra with his wife.

John Salvado
AAP