Aussie Results/News 2023

[Vault-emort]

Main events are done in Canberra. Nicola Olyslagers gave the crowd a treat with an impressive series of jumps, ending with three attempts at a new Commonwealth Record.

400 Beck 46.05 Murphy 46.33 Atkinson 46.61 Searle 46.68
400B Hunt 46.65

400 Andrew 53.37 Pretorius 53.47
HJ Olyslagers 1.98m Whelan 1.86m
Series - 1.86 o `.89 o 1.92 o 1.95 o 1.98 xo 2.03 xxx

BRISBANE (many results not showing)

110H (0.5) Golubovic 14.21

100 (1.3) Harris 11.58 Hagan 11.77
400 Ramsay 54.21

[AS]

WOW re Olyslagers! Very strong start to the year

[El Toro]

Kurtis Marschall finished 2nd in Karlsruhe on 27 January with 5.83, sharing a WL with winner KC Lightfoot (USA) and Emmanouil Karalis (GRE). Lightfoot had a perfect run of first time clearances in his first 6 vaults, including the 5.83 before failing at 5.87.

Marschall also cleared 5.83 first time but had single misses at 5.50 and 5.78 pushing him back to 2nd but one spot ahead of Karalis who only cleared 5.83 on his 2nd attempt.

Despite not winning, he should be very happy with this result as 5.83 is his 3rd best clearance indoors or out behind his 5.87i at Clermont-Ferrand in 2019 and 5.86i at Weltklasse in 2018. His best outoor clearance is 1cm less at 5.82 in Zagreb in 2021.

This highlights his tendency to perform better indoors as 5.87i puts him at '#2 AT performer on the AUS list behind only Hooker compared to his '#4 on the outdoor list. He needs 6.00 outdoors to get to =#2 with Burgess and Hooker.

Let's hope this fine result, coming only one week after his season opener of 5.60 in Perth, indicates he has rediscovered the pre-COVID years magic that made him look like an inevitable 6m+ jumper.

[Vault-emort]

A few more results from Brisbane:

400 Holder 46.94...4th Moloney 48.01
LJ Rucker 7.88m (1.2) Miers 7.51m (0.4)

DIS Lally GBR 60.88m Gollshewsky 59.55m

[El Toro]

Story about MMar NR holder, Brett Robinson, and his need to overcome excercise-related transient abdominal pain (ETAP) in order to set the NR. WTF is ETAP I hear you ask? Read the article and find out!

https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/sport/athletics/a-stitch-in-time-how-robinson-beat-mystery-ailment-to-break-deek-s-marathon-record-20230125-p5cfap.html

[Vault-emort]

WTF is ETAP I hear you ask?

Having had my own 'mystery ailments' and hospital stays in the last few years, I can empathise with Brett,

Iam unlikely to challenge any of his or Deek's best times however...

[El Toro]

Having had my own 'mystery ailments' and hospital stays in the last few years, I can empathise with Brett,

Iam unlikely to challenge any of his or Deek's best times however...

Luckily, I was diagnosed with ICGAFFAYRBA syndrome and retired to a life of drunken debauchery and general moral degeneracy. I highly recommend it!

[Vault-emort]

A spot of drizzle this morning brought cooler conditions and a damp track. Sadly a bunch of withdrawals left some heats rather bare.

200s
H1 (0.6) Bond 20.76 Rowe 20.84 Agnew 21.16
H2 (0.7) Rodrigues Chico 20.96 Sarmento 21.14
H3 (1.3) Azzopardi 21.02 Gosschnik 21.17
H4 (1.9) Despard 20.89 Romanin 20.94 Hartmann 21.05

H1 (1.6) Connolly 23.12 Hotten 24.39
H2 (0.6) Edwards 23.67 Pretorius 24.06
H3 (0.5) Quirk 23.97 McShane 24.80
H4 (0.6) Carroll 24.04 Otway 24.14
H5 (1.0) Andrew 23.77 Inkster 24.17
H6 (0.9) Stallan 23.65 Praciak 23.87

Another big PB for Stallan who only turned 19 two months ago. Connolly should win the final by a mile though.

U20 200 h1 (0.2) Sultana 21.20

TJ Owusu 13.47m (0,0) Louison-Rowe (b07) `12.67m (0.0)
HAM Roberts 58.38m

[Vault-emort]

Disappointingly, a bunch more scratchings from some of the 200 finals:

M (1.2) Despard 20.59 Rowe 20.78 Bond 20.83 Rodrigues Chico 21.04
U20 (0.9) Sultana 20.97 Ayoade 21.33 Colgan 21.36

F (1.1) Stallan 23.62 Andrew 23.68 Quirk 23.96
U20 (1.1) Tayloe 24.43

[El Toro]

Jacob Despard was covered in the Canberra Times today with a short story and photo and covered his plans which have been motivated by his first experience overseas last year.

It's worth noting that Despard started this year with a 100m PB of 10.24 +1.2 set in June 2022 at Oceania Champs in Mackay. Yesterday he improved that to 10.21 -0.2, a much bigger improvement than the raw times show.

His starting 200m PB was 20.94 +1.0 in December 2021 at QSAC, which he proceeded to improve last week to 20.78 -0.3, again at QSAC. Based on V-e's report above, his 20.59 +1.2 today in Canberra, makes it a 0.35 total improvement so far this year.

It's pretty special to win..I've been coming here for four to five years now, it's known as the sprint capital of Australia. To come here this weekend with the nation's best and come away with the win, it's something I've always wanted to do and a really good sign being so early in the season.

Despard emerged as a promising junior a decade ago, winning the Stawell Gift in 2018, but it has been a slow toil to reach the elite ranks as an open athlete. That all changed last year, the sprinter breaking through with a number of impressive performances. Despard made his Commonwealth Games debut and competed in multiple international races.

I went over last year and ran a few races in Switzerland, then went into the Commonwealth Games. It made me more hungry to get back over there. The level of athletics and appreciation in Europe is huge

.

Full story (paywalled) available at:

https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8064548/despard-crowned-sprint-king/?cs=14237

[El Toro]

Athletics Australia has revamped the relay program https://www.athletics.com.au/news/na...edals-in-2032/

I don't know how, or if, this will affect selection policie but I have noted a recent toughening of the selection criteria for relays vs individual events. It reads to me that AA gave priority to relay performance over individual unless there was a good chance to progress well.

[Vault-emort]

Athletics Australia has revamped the relay program

I see they messed up the list of relay medals won at OG & WC...

I wonder if we can hope for any legitimate comps against other nations to get us qualifying standards in all those events they are targetting.

[El Toro]

Thanks to Glorydays bringin attention to the Cooks Classic in Wanganui, yesterday 28 January. Full post here: https://forum.trackandfieldnews.com/...50#post1780550

Australians mentioned but I did not check full results.

W400

3. Ellie Beer 53.69

Ellie Beer turned 20 earlier this year and has so far been unable to improve her PB of 52.53, set way back in March 2019. I will note that she did run 52.55 in the SF at the U-20 WC in Cali last year and this NZL run was her first race since then. Last year, in Canberra, her first run of the year was 53.66, so maybe she is on track for mid-52 or better, jsut like last year.


WMile

1. Georgia Griffith 4:30.26
2. Sarah Billings 4:32.30 PB

Georgia Griffith ran her 2nd best time ever behind her PB of 4:27.81 set in London on 14 May 2022. It was also 6 seconds faster than her previous best down under, run at the Albie Thomas meet at The Crest Cent. in Dec 2019.

Sarah Billings' time is a PB by 2.04, beating her previous best of 4:34.34 in Dublin on 2 Jul 2022. This moves her from `#21 on the AUS AT performer list up to `#14, jumping ahead of the older guard of Willis-Johnson, Power, McKnight, McFarlane, Small, Delaney. Of those, Small is the odd one out with a PB set in the last decade (2020).

Interestingly, Billings finished 7th behind Griffith's PB in London last year with 4:37.63. Turning a 10s differential between the two into 2s in the course of 9 months seems impressive but I have no real insight into how this will play out later this year.

MMile

2. Callum Davies (b.1999) 3:56.06 PB
3. Jude Thomas (b. 2002) 3:58.29 PB

Callum Davies set a new PB in finishing second behind Sam Tanner's time of 3:54.56, also a PB for the Kiwi. Davies' time of 3:56.06 moves him to #23` on the AUS AT performer list, one place behind Merv Lincoln's 3:55.9h, set while finishing 2nd to Elliott's rather modest 2.7s improvement on the WR of 3:57.2. Davies' time represented an update of 0.9 on his previous best of 3:56.99 set in Cork last July.

Jude Thomas in his debut mile, pushed himself to #47` AT AUS, ahead of another Thomas, in this case, Albie, who ran 3:58.3h back in 1964. For what it's worth, the MileSplit calculator converts the mile time to a 1500 equivalent of 3:40.63, somewhat better than Thomas' actual PB of 3:41.11 set at last year's Brisbane Track Classic.

[El Toro]

I see they messed up the list of relay medals won at OG & WC...

I wonder if we can hope for any legitimate comps against other nations to get us qualifying standards in all those events they are targetting.

Well they did say they had secured funding for the program but it's expensive to tour two teams of 6 for the 4x100 or even 2 x 8/10 for A&B teams. It's also important to have top quality competition not running under no pressure against Fiji, PNG and whoever else you need to make up the numbers.

[Vault-emort]

uagainst Fiji, PNG and whoever else you need to make up the numbers.

Last year I think we couldn't even manage to get NZL 4x1 & 4x4 teams here. They should be guaranteed and we should also have JPN/CHN teams.

Probably need to think about a relay meet in between events like Melb/Syd/Bris continental meets. Maybe an Australian multis champ/replay meet in Canberra between two of those meets. Could be combined with Under-age Champs.