Australia is currently witnessing a new era of world beaters on the track, with Tiernan, McSweyn, Hull, McDonald and others set to take down more records and medals than we have seen in recent times.
RT caught up with the new Aussie 10,000m record holder, Patrick Tiernan, for a quick...
By Ryan Gregson
Post the 2020 European athletics season, the MTC athletes who were in Europe competing needed to get home after what was overall a successful campaign. This wasn’t as easy as it seemed though. We were trying to come home in October, however when we were looking at flights in September, news reports mentioned that there were 25,000 other Australians who were also trying to come home. This number, on top of the fact that there were limited flights going to Australia that had limited seats available due to each city having a passenger entry quota, it took us a couple of weeks to be able to get a flight home.
We’ve all done some strange things for training from time to time. But you would have to go some to match the training Ron Clarke put in one weekend in 1966.
Granted, most of us would have trouble matching anything Ron Clarke did (other than, perhaps, the three years he...
There is plenty of articles and interviews floating around about the Melbourne Track Club that may give you a little insight about the group. For me, it is my second family and spending so much time on the road with a handful of athletes makes our life very nomadic and unique. Various professional groups spend a lot of time together on training camps and traveling to races but as a group based in the southern hemisphere, it means we have to spend even more time away from home, constantly jumping around to new destinations to follow the competition schedule. Traveling around with MTC seems like a standard way of life for me, however I have realised that a lot of people are intrigued at how we go about each year and spend so much time training and traveling with each other. I am going to give a little more insight about the Melbourne Track Club and try to explain a few things you may not already know.
Like Kurt Fearnley before him, Jaryd Clifford is on his way to becoming a household name. At 21 years-of-age, the vision impaired middle-distance runner won two gold medals at the 2019 World Para Athletics Championships (1500m and 5000m). We caught up with Jaryd as he continues his intense preparation for the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.
A column by Len Johnson
For those not closely monitoring Tasmania’s Christmas Carnivals series of cycling and athletics competitions – i.e. most of the world – Stewart McSweyn’s 3:50.61 mile at Penguin on 29 December came as a bolt from the blue.
Not that there’s any surprise about McSweyn running that...
The name Jye Edwards has been circling around the Australian middle distance scene for years now. A talented junior, destined perhaps for greatest, but held back by those all to common injuries. But now, under the close eye of one of Australia's most successful coaches in history, Dick Telford, Jye Edward's stock is on the rise. A no BS type of runner, modest, polite, loaded with both endurance and speed; it's hard not to want this guy to succeed.
We caught up with Jye and had a pretty cool chat....
RT: Jye, good to have you on RT. Congrats with your Albie Thomas Mile victory (Ed. Jye clocked 3:57.30). You must be stoked with that?
JE: Hey mate, it’s a pleasure to be here!
Thanks a lot, I was very happy to be able to nab the win at the Albie Thomas Mile against such a quality field. It’s not often you get to toe the line with an NCAA champion and a 3-time Olympian in the same race, as well as several other top athletes. A great end to the year and hopefully a good springboard into more races in the New Year.
It’s been quite the year for records. World records, area records, national records going down like ninepins.
It’s possible that without much ‘normal’ athletics happening, record-breaking creates even bigger headlines. Setting up a night of records, as happened when Joshua Cheptegei and Letesenbet Gidey broke the men’s 10,000 and women’s...
By any measure, 2020 has been an ordinary year. So many of the sporting milestones which punctuate our calendar either went uncelebrated or, when they could proceed, were “celebrated” in eerie silence.
One Australian running tradition was maintained, however. The calendar year ended with a resounding performance at 10,000 metres, for which we must give grateful thanks to Patrick Tiernan.
For the first time in over 50 years, the annual Zatopek 10,000 metres races did not take place. Happily, they will instead be raced in January, 2021. But Tiernan found a December 10,000 race to run, at “The Track Meet”, in San Juan Capistrano, and was able to enjoy his own private celebration after setting an Australian record 27:22.55.
Tiernan finished second to Eric Jenkins of the US, who won in 27:22.06. His time was also an Oceania record. San Juan was formerly a Spanish mission in Capistrano, famous for the annual return of migratory swallows each northern hemisphere spring. Truly, all Tiernan’s swallows came home to roost on 5 December, 2020.
A column by Len Johnson
Neil Robbins knew Ron Clarke well enough to call him ‘Fat’, Clarke’s boyhood family nickname. He was a teammate of John Landy and Marjorie Jackson; a clubmate of Les Perry, Geoff Warren and Dave Stephens, ‘the Flying Milko’. He trained with Merv Lincoln and many...
