In a boost for Australian athletics the Melbourne Track Classic has been granted Continental Tour Gold status by World Athletics.
The meet will be held at Lakeside Stadium in Melbourne on Thursday 23 February under the new name of the Maurie Plant Meet, in the week following the World Cross Country Championships in Bathurst. The status for the meet means that Melbourne will return to being the host of the most prestigious held in Australia each year, with international athletes competing at scale in Melbourne for the first time since 2017 during the short lived Nitro Athletics series.
The World Athletics Contintental Tour Gold series includes meets of the calibre of Tokyo, Turku, Budapest, New York and Ostrava and bring to Australia considerable benefits for athletes and fans:
- Category A meet for World Athletics Rankings, which are important for qualifying for the World Championships
- A minimum US$200,000 in prize money
- A minimum of 15% of the athletes participating in the meet will be from outside Oceania
- In at least 12 of the events, a minimum of 3 athletes from the Top 50 in the world (3 per country basis) to participate
- An expectation from World Athletics of at least 3,000 spectators at the meet
The meet has been renamed in memory of Maurie Plant, who died in 2020. Plant was a colourful identity in Australian athletics, most known for his role as Athletics Australia’s international athlete liaison, a booming voice as a meet commentator and for supporting the careers of numerous athletes on the international circuit, including Cathy Freeman, Steve Hooker and Sally Pearson.
The Melbourne Track Classic had previously been part of the IAAF World Athletics Tour until the mid-2010s, but towards the end of that period was overtaken by the Sydney Track Classic, and then more recently, the Brisbane Track Classic, as the top performing meet of the Australian domestic season.
Recent Posts:
- Commonwealth Games Photo Galleries
Re-live the highlights from each day, through the lens of Fred Etter. Free downloads using the code you receive when you subscribe to our newsletter. Gearing up for the season? Replacement spikes, shipped fast from Melbourne. Shop Now - Caldwell leads podium sweep; Kerr too classy in men’s mileAbbey Caldwell didn’t do everything right. But she did do the right things right when they counted. The 25-year-old, who was the bronze medallist over 1500m in Birmingham four years ago, led home an Australian 1-2-3 in a tactical masterclass at Scotstoun Stadium. The only fault was non-consequential, with the Victorian getting boxed in on
- 7 Gold on final day as Australia tops medal tallyHas there ever been a more golden day for Australian athletics than the final one at Scotstoun Stadium? With 7 golds and 10 minor medals won, the answer is ‘no.’ The previous most successful day was over 75 years ago, in 1950, when Australia won 6 gold in a day. Rhiannon Clarke, fourth in the
- Denny goes back-to-back as discus dominance continues in GlasgowMatt Denny has defended his Commonwealth Games discus title in emphatic style at Scotstoun, throwing 67.73m to win by more than two and a half metres, with every one of his five legal throws far enough for gold. Jamaica’s Fedrick Dacres took silver with 65.10m, while England’s Lawrence Okoye — who has spent much of
- “It’s not Little Athletics”: from mum’s heckle to a Commonwealth hat-trickTwelve months ago, Jemima Montag was recovering from hamstring surgery, watching the world championships from home. On the final day of athletics in Glasgow, she became just the second Australian race walker to win three consecutive Commonwealth Games gold medals. And she led home an Australian clean sweep to do it. Montag’s winning time of
