Hull does double as Gout, Olyslagers and Bol also prevail in Perth

If you asked the average Australian athletics fan to sum up how Perth suited different event groups, the consensus would be great for sprints and jumps; 800m maybe at a pinch; anything longer, forget it.

Those expectations must now be deemed at least questionable after an Australian Championships which did, indeed, see great sprinting from Rohan Browning, Torrie Lewis and Gout Gout, and a high-altitude high jump duel between regular Olympic and world medallists Nicola Olyslagers and Eleanor Patterson. Peter Bol delivered in the 800m, too, with an Australian record and the first three men achieving the World Athletics Championships Tokyo 25 standard.

But then Jessica Hull, the Olympic 1500m silver medallist and fifth-fastest of all time at the distance, doubled back to win her fourth 5000m title, beating her own championship record and adding to the 1500m she had won the previous night. And the continually surprising Seth O’Donnell – he of the unofficial 3:36.8 1500m run during a black-out – outsprinted world indoor 3000m bronze medallist Ky Robinson in the men’s 5000m, with Cam Myers also passing a spent Robinson to take second. Myers himself won his first senior title the previous day, outracing Adam Spencer and Olli Hoare in the 1500m.

So, maybe, not so bad for distance running after all.

Sprints just about live up to billing

Sprints, and sprint talk, dominated the lead-up to the championships. World indoor 60m silver medallist Lachlan Kennedy, Gout Gout, Torrie Lewis – young talents all – on a hot track and with prevailing winds almost certain to be helpful, the only question being whether they would stay on the right side of the maximum allowable 2.0m/s wind.

Sometimes they did, just as often they didn’t. Gout was triply cursed. The 17-year-old won the open 200m in 19.84, a thunderclap almost instantly silenced by an unfeeling wind gauge which flashed up 2.2m/s. Machines have no sense of drama, or perhaps too much so.

This followed Gout’s two earlier 9.99 times in the U20 100m, both with excessive tailwinds. Fickle winds indeed, although his wind-legal 20.21 in the heats of the open 200m was a championship record and his wind-aided 19.84 in the final makes him the second fastest U20 200m sprinter in history in all conditions.

None of the talk centred on Rohan Browning, though some took note that the man who ran 10.01 in the rounds of the Tokyo Olympics was back looking fit, healthy and fast again. Kennedy ran 10.00 in his heat, equalling the World Championships standard and cementing his favouritism for the crown. No-one told Browning. In the final, he got a narrow edge from the first 30 metres and defied Kennedy’s efforts to run him down. Only just, mind you, as both men were given 10.01 with Browning just 0.005 to the good.

It was even closer in the women’s race which pitted Lewis against Leah O’Brien – who had broken Raelene Boyle’s U20 record with an 11.14 earlier in the week – and defending champion Bree Rizzo. The three raced almost side-by-side the entire distance before Lewis and O’Brien crossed the line locked together in 11.24 (0.9m/s) with Rizzo inches behind in 11.25. This time it was Lewis by 0.004.

What a week for O’Brien. She began it with a PB of 11.50, then closed to within four-hundredths of a second of Lewis’s national record of 11.10, before ending within four-thousandths of a second of the record-holder.

Throw in Gout’s 200m, a personal best of 22.75 by Jessica Milat to win the women’s 200m, a 54.29 400m hurdles victory to Sarah Carli and a windy (2.1m/s) 12.74 by Liz Clay in the 100m hurdles and, yes, Perth delivered in the sprints.

World indoor bronze medallist Liam Adcock took the men’s long jump title with a wind-assisted 8.14m. His best legal jump of 8.06m was also superior to Liam Fairweather’s 8.03m. Mackenzie Little took the women’s javelin with a best of 59.17m.

Olyslagers perfect up to 2.01m

Dual world indoor champion Olyslagers produced a textbook display in the high jump. She needed to, as Eleanor Patterson also brought her A-game to the high jump apron. Through 1.97m, via 1.88m and 1.93m, both were perfect. Patterson had one miss at 1.97m and thereafter had misses at 1.99m and 2.01m as she was forced to play catch-up. Olyslagers went on to sail over 1.99m and 2.01m as if these heights were minor obstacles before three close attempts at 2.05m.

In the men’s pole vault, Kurtis Marschall entered at 5.51m, cleared that at the first attempt and then did the same at 5.71m. He went up to 5.88m but failed three times there.

Bol’s masterclass 800m, Caldwell finds a way through

Peter Bol has been a different athlete in this domestic season. Fatherhood – he and his partner have a baby girl – clearly agrees with him. Something, anyway, has induced a far more relaxed demeanour on the track. The 800m final went out at a fast pace thanks to defending champion Luke Boyes – around 50.5 at the bell – but Bol took control at 600 metres, gliding away from Olympic finalist Peyton Craig to win unchallenged in 1:43.79, 0.20 under Joseph Deng’s previous national record.

Craig finished second in a PB 1:44.07 and Boyes, who missed the Olympic standard by 0.03 in last year’s championships, hit the World Championships standard on the button at 1:44.50.

Claudia Hollingsworth and Abbey Caldwell were the favoured pair in the women’s race. Both found themselves boxed mid-field coming up to the 600m mark. Caldwell seized the initiative, surging through a gap in the pack and out into the clear. Hollingsworth also found clear room but a second or so later. She never got on terms, Caldwell taking the title, 2:00.51 to 2:00.90. Both have the standard for Tokyo, so both can be selected.

Myers made a big step up to win the men’s 1500m title. Following his win in the John Landy 1500m at the Melbourne Continental Tour Gold meeting, he is now winning races rather than just being towed to fast times. He was either in front, or near the front, throughout the final and a last lap of around 55 seconds saw him hold off Spencer and Hoare in 3:34.39.

O’Donnell, who has been on a tear this season in bringing his 5000m time down to 13:14 in chasing Robinson home in Melbourne and running that ‘unofficial’ 3:36.8 at 1500m, sat with the leaders in Perth’s warm conditions. With a final lap in the 54-55 second region, he executed his last-shot strategy perfectly to win in 13:49.30, adding a national track title to his second national cross-country title last year. Out pacing Myers and Robinson in the final lap is no mean achievement.

The women’s race had the national record-holders at 1500m (Hull), 3000m (Georgia Griffith), 5000m (Rose Davies) and 10,000m (Lauren Ryan) plus five of the seven fastest women in Australian history. One of the five – Izzy Batt-Doyle – set a solid pace in the hot conditions, 3:00, 6:02 and 9:10 splits for the first 3000 metres. With all of those, plus Maudie Skyring still in contention, the pace slowed as the end game played out.

Ultimately, although Griffith threatened in the straight, Hull proved best of the best, winning in 15:02.74 by a stride from Griffith (15:02.92), with Davies (15:03.83) and Hall (15:04.18) following next.

Hull completed a 1500m and 5000m double having taken the shorter event from Sarah Billings and Griffith the previous night.

Len Johnson for World Athletics

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