For Young girl Anna Dowling, that’s exactly what happened while she was holidaying on the Gold Coast with her family.

Local athletics coach Annie Bailey couldn’t restrain herself from informing The Witness of the feel-good story when she heard.

Calls were made to the Dowling family as they basked in the 27 degree Queensland weather and this is how the milestone greeting went down.

In the lead-up to the Regional Athletic Championships in Lithgow in two weeks, Anna has added some training sessions to her holiday itinerary, such as jogging, swimming and running on the beach.

She decided to do a one-off track session at the Gold Coast Athletics Centre last Monday evening when the least expected thing happened.

“Anna’s coach (Australian Olympic coach John Atterton from Sydney) said, “do you realise that’s the same track Sally Pearson trains at? You never know you might see her’,” Anna’s mum Sonya said.

Anna and Sonya arrived at the centre at 5pm and low and behold 15 minutes later the 2012 Olympic 100m hurdles champion turned up with her coach.

“I said to Anna ‘Sally is here’ and Anna said ‘is she?’”

The pair watched Peason train briefly before Sonya asked her if she had any spare time after her session to say hello to Anna.

At first when Anna and Sonya were finishing their training, Sally looked too busy to be interrupted.

But the international rep spotted they were leaving and started to walk over.

“She came over and had a chat, and a photo with Anna. She told us she was training for the World Indoors Championships in Poland in March or April,” Sonya said.

“…Anna was beside herself!”