Aussie Results/News 2023

[Vault-emort]

Mackenzie Mielczarek threw 59.59m in a meet in Germany over the weekend, Lianna Davidson 57.65m at a college meet in the US the other week.

That's a nice - nearly 5m - improvement over her PB from two years ago. I think she was injured for most of this year's domestic season. Wonder who she is training with over there. Though the 59m throw was 4.5m better than her old PB, I see she also threw a PB of 57.11m the day before.

I note Lianna had another 57m PB when she opened her season in March which I don't think we noticed on here.

Good to see the Aussie spear-chucker depth might continue after Paris. I feel Kelsey & Mike may be thinking about starting a family after the Games, though could still return to the sport afterwards. She's still about a decade younger than Kath Mitchell.

[Vault-emort]

I noticed Mackenzie Mielczarek is the holder of a (Tier1) SAHOF Scholarship which provides her with mentoring and funding for two years, so perhaps that's how she is able to travel to Germany to train and compete.

Other active able-bodied scholarship holders include Aidan Murphy, Jett Carlin (who seems to have had injury or transition issues this year) & Rebecca Henderson (all Tier3). Henderson - along with Rhydian Cowley - set Oceanian 35k Walk records in Melbourne on the weekend.

Another Aussie on the US College scene recording PBs this year is WA's Alana Yukich who has set PBs for 200 (24.10), 400 (54.19) & 100H (13.65). She hasn't yet beaten her PB of 57.00 (400H) from a couple of years back, but the signs are there that this might not be too far off. We sure could do with some depth in our 400H ranks.

Another event where we currently lack depth is the WPV so good to see a recent 4.31m PB from Cassidy Bradshaw who turns 20 later this year.

[Vault-emort]

I noticed Mackenzie Mielczarek is the holder of a (Tier1) SAHOF Scholarship which provides her with mentoring and funding for two years, so perhaps that's how she is able to travel to Germany to train and compete.

I was wrong - imagine that....

Here is at least one way Mackenzie funded (in part) her trip - with some donations influenced by Uwe Hohn's recommendation (wondered if he had advised her on the German trip**):

https://www.gofundme.com/f/mackenzie-mielczarek-2023-javelin-tour

** ETA and I see Uwe is probably there as Kath Mitchell also threw there on Saturday (only about 57m for 2nd but she took the full six attempts).

[El Toro]

I noticed Mackenzie Mielczarek is the holder of a (Tier1) SAHOF Scholarship...

I don't think I ever knew these scholarships existed. As far as the gofundme campaign goes from your other posts, that might be the future for AUS athletes to get support from their local community and businesses especially if they can give good social media. I might have to drop by and donate some of my ill gotten gains.

Here's the Sport Australia Hall of Fame (SAHOF) three Tier assistance packages for anybody interested:

Tier 1 Inclusions

Six successful recipients will each receive:

One-on-one personal mentoring by a Sport Australia Hall of Fame Member
$10,000 sporting expense grant
Merchandise and Recovery Equipment
An invitation to attend an event to meet fellow Scholarship Holders, Mentor and Members

Tier 2 Inclusions

Ten successful recipients will each receive:

$5,000 sporting expense grant
Merchandise and Recovery Equipment

Tier 3 Inclusions

Sixteen successful recipients will each receive:

$2,500 sporting expense grant
Merchandise and Recovery Equipment

[El Toro]

Minor nit-pick: I believe the NM track is at 1561m.

Thanks, gh.

I didn't have that track elevation in my spreadsheet, so just grabbed the town elevation off Wikipedia and added the track to my to do list. You saved me the effort!

[Vault-emort]

I don't think I ever knew these scholarships existed.

I might have heard of them, but didn't pay much attention until today. They must have been around a while as I see former athletics recipients include Dani Samuels, Ryan Gregson, Brooke Stratton & Riley Day.

I might have to drop by and donate some of my ill gotten gains.

I don't think she wants smelly old runners or empty grog bottles

[Vault-emort]

Mike Barber just raised a point about our depth in WJav that I hadn't thought about.

Due to Kelsey's WC, we can have four spots in Budapest.

[El Toro]

I've added Alana Yukich and Lianna Davidson to my NCAA list as well as 8 others for a total of 42.

Yukich just graduated so is probably finished in NCAA unless she's got some extended eligibility capacity.

Some of the other 8 are qualified for Regionals so I will catch up on them this week. Does AA publish a list anybody knows of because I sure couldn't find one.

[Vault-emort]

Does AA publish a list anybody knows of because I sure couldn't find one.

No they never have. Just like they never have an injury list which would be extremely helpful.

Fletcher McEwen used to be the one who looked after most of the US College stats for Jenesy. Not sure if he still does.

[typpo]

Aussies competing in the Rabat DL meet on Sunday: Bisset (W800), Hall (W1500) and Hoare (M1500).

[El Toro]

I think you're being a bit harsh on Jake. That Finland PB was an outlier and I was quite suss about it at the time. A full 0.2 better than his PB which he had run earlier in that day. And the next week in Tampere he was back to his normal times of the period - 10.4s..

A bit harsh? Not really, given Tiaan Whelpton improved from Heat to Final when he was competing in his first competition that wasn't in NZL or AUS and he was also born in 2000, just like Doran. Apart from the U-20 WC, Doran also competed in JPN in 2019 and this meet in 2022. That's a lot more international experience than Whelpton.

However, on the outlier issue, you do seem to have a valid point.

The AUS athletes all ran in the same final but the FIN athletes ran separately in a mix of U-18 and U-20 events. I couldn't find any other nationalites competing that day and it's worth noting that the FIN athletes did not proceed to the WC.

I looked up the results I could find and adjusted for wind/altitude(only 80m) and compared the Heat and Final times and looked up how long it took an athlete to improve their PB in 2018.

Athlete	HeatAdj	FinalAdj	Diff	TimeToImprove
Jake Doran	10.44	10.23	-0.21	Never
Zane Branco	10.64	10.41	-0.23	Never
Josh Azzopardi	10.69	10.49	-0.20	2022
Thomas Agnew	10.84	10.56	-0.28	2023
Harrison Hunt	10.74	10.59	-0.15	2022
Joel TURKKA	11.17	11.02	-0.15	2019
Lasse HÄMELAHTI	11.05	11.26	0.21	2019
Eliel POHJOLAINEN	11.07	11.12	0.05	N/A
Joonas LIUKKONEN	11.15	11.15	0.00	Never
Daniel SAVOLAINEN	11.01	10.92	-0.09	Never

It looks like the FIN athletes are the sort of mixed result you'd expect with some improving and some going backwards on that day with a FIN average improvement from H to F of 0.00 compared to AUS 0.21.

But we need to take into account that the AUS athletes, unlike the FINs, hadn't raced for 3-4 months and Doran not at all that year. You'd expect them to need a few runs! However, the more convincing thing to me is the time taken to improve for talented, serious athletes over ages when improvement is almost guaranteed.

Contrast AUS with the FIN athletes who had a more normal mix.with some immediatly improving the next year. For those that didn't, we do need to take into account that Pohjolainen didn't compete after 2018, Liukkonen up to indoors 2023 and Savolainen not after 2021.

[El Toro]

Mike Barber just raised a point about our depth in WJav that I hadn't thought about.

Due to Kelsey's WC, we can have four spots in Budapest.

We won't get another 2 qualified on distance given it's 63.80, but we'd have a decent chance on the ranking list with a target of 36.

Here's the profile of the person ranked 36th on 5 July 2022 (3 per country), who did make it to the WC in Eugene and finished 12th in the Final. https://worldathletics.org/athletes/...fuchs-14509130

I think that sort of season is probably doable for Mielczarek who's on the way up but Mitchell might struggle even when she loses that dragging 53.09 (950pts) from WC. I don't think Davidson can make it just on NCAA competitions and will need to be competing in higher ranked Euro competitions.

Here's the WJT rankings as at 16 May 2023. It will be interesting to see the movement after the last week.

2. Barber (wildcard+distance)
4. Little (distance)
17. Peeters (NZL)
45. Mitchell
74. Davidson
--. Mielczarek

[Vault-emort]

That's a lot more international experience than Whelpton.

Well... Whel?... Whelpton did compete in South Africa before he raced over to NZL.

Maybe in his first Northern Hemisphere comp as a Kiwi he had the same kind of beginner's luck as Doran did in FIN.

[Vault-emort]

Our Universiade team has been announced:

https://www.athletics.com.au/news/uniroos-to-unleash-chengdu-2023/

Shame our eligible women javelin & hammer throwers (and a few others) don't seem interested

[AS]

Tracking Aussies at NCAA regionals so far:

James Joycey (North Carolina) 66.00q (11th) MHT East
Alexander Kolesnikoff (Harvard) 20.36q MSP East (1st) 31cm PB, followed up with a 20.35, stays number 5 all-time Aussie, but climbs closer to Stevenson'sv 20.63 in 4th
Jesse Hunt (North Carolina) 3:44.61Q (2nd fastest) Round 1 M1500 East
Duncan Miller (Princeton) 3:48.94 dnq (38th fastest) Round 1 M1500 East
Haftu Strintzos (Villanova) 29:04.93Q (6th) M10000mEast
Josh Phillips (Villanova) 30:30.36 dnq (32nd) M10000 East

Colby Eddoes (Arkansas State) 7.37 dnq (28th) MLJ West
Tom Willems (Colorado State) 47.80 dnq (45th fastest) Round 1 M400 West
Kash Powell (Long Beach State) 1:49.77Q (25th fastest) Round 1 M800 West
Ethan Brouw (New Mexico) 1:54.21 dnq (45th fastest) Round 1 M800 West
Adam Spencer (Wisconsin) 3:40.66Q (4th fastest) Round 1 M1500 West
Alex Stitt (Oklahoma State) 3:41.04Q (6th fastest) Round 1 M1500 West
Jason Clayton (Loyola) 3:44.51Q (21st fastest) Round 1 M1500 West
Kang Nyaok (N Arizona) 3:46.81 dnq (29th fastest) Round 1 M1500 West
Ky Robinson (Stanford) 28:22.84Q (8th fastest) M10000 West

https://flashresults.ncaa.com/Outdoor/2023/FirstRounds/East/index.htm

https://flashresults.ncaa.com/Outdoor/2023/FirstRounds/West/index.htm