Regular readers will know that this column loves the annual rankings lists.
If there’s one thing better than watching a year’s athletics unfold around the world, it’s reading about how respected observers of the sport rate the way things have gone. Whether it is done by popular vote or detailed...
The Commercial Hotel in Kerang, a rural town in Victoria’s Mallee region, is as unlikely a site for a High-Performance Training Centre as you could find. Yet it may have a claim to being Australia’s first such facility.
Quick question. Is Nick Willis one of the best 1500/mile runners of his generation because he has now broken four minutes for the mile for 19 consecutive years? Or has he broken four minutes for the mile for 19 consecutive years because he is one of the best 1500/mile...
When Jessica Hull ran 8:36.03 to set a new Australian women’s record for 3000 metres last September, it was widely – and correctly – reported that she had broken Benita Willis’s previous mark set over 17 years earlier in 2003.
Willis, in turn, had run 8:38.06 to finally better the...
One night back in the late-1970s, the announcer at Melbourne’s Olympic Park finally gave vent to his exasperation at the cat-and-mouse battle between two of Australia’s leading distance athletes on the track below for the Victorian men’s 5000 metres title.
“Doesn’t anyone want to win this race,” he cried.
I couldn’t...
Indoor middle-distance records and all-time lists are under assault, you may have noticed.
Not just under assault, actually; more getting smashed – particularly the all-time lists. Pleasingly, Australians have also been involved.
Ethiopia’s Gudaf Tsegay set a world record 3:53.09 in France on 9 February. Then last weekend, came an Australian...
So; there it is. A third Australian city will host a summer Olympics with the news that Brisbane is the likely host for the 2032 Olympic Games.
Brisbane is not yet the designated host. Rather, the Queensland capital has been granted (checks notes) “preferred bidder status” on a list of...
How do you set an Australian record when 15 athletes – yourself, and the previous record-holder, included – have a superior legal performance.
Simple, as it turns out. You just put a timer at the 100-yard point of a 100 metres race.
That’s what happened in the New South Wales state...
This time last year – 12 March, 2020, to be precise - Georgia Griffiths ran 2:01.43 for 800 metres to beat national record holder Catriona Bisset, 2:01.54, by less than a step, with Linden Hall a further step back in third in 2:01.73.
Madeleine Murray and Gigi Maccagnini were a...
Jared Tallent’s retirement leaves Australia one champion short in the race walking department. Four Olympic medals – one gold, two silver and one bronze – over three Olympic Games eloquently attest to that.
Coincidentally, Melbourne Track Classic, formerly Australia’s most prestigious invitational track and field meeting but now, in this...
