Four event victories by teenagers, including two Australian junior records, gave a glimpse of the next decade in Australian athletics.
Cover photo of Claudia Hollingsworth. Photos by Jeff Wray.
Claudia Hollingsworth and Peyton Craig etched their names into the record books, while Cameron Myers and Torrie Lewis confirmed that athletes of any age will be hard pressed to beat them this domestic season.
Hollingsworth slashed three seconds off her personal best in winning the 1500m, taking just over two seconds off Georgie Clarke’s record with a run of 4:04.45.
“It was just so exciting, the crowd’s really big and running at night time under lights just gives it something special,” 18-year-old Hollingsworth said.
“Having my teammates in the race and leading up it felt really good through training. I’ve just come back from Falls Creek and I really enjoyed the race.”
Hollingsworth beat home Maudie Skyring (4:07.96) and Ethiopia’s Aynadis Mebratu (4:08.14) who also recorded personal bests. Imogen Barrett, better known as an 800m runner, lowered her PB to 4:08.91 in fifth place.
Peyton Craig lowered his own Australian junior 800m record in taking victory from New Zealand’s James Preston and Victoria’s Jack Lunn over two laps. Craig clocked 1:45.41 to Preston’s 1:45.50, with Lunn a second behind in 1:46.61.
Craig is multi-talented, representing Australia in both triathlon and athletics in 2022, where he ran the 1500m at the World Under 20 Championships.
“I made the decision to put the triathlon career on the back burners and focus on track, and I think I have found a good distance here,” the Queenslander said.
“I’m in career-best form but I think I can get the qualifier [1:44.70], that’s definitely the goal,” Craig said of the qualifying mark for the Paris Olympics.
Australian 100m record holder, Torrie Lewis, was greeted with a headwind in the 200m but still approached her personal best in a half-second victory over Georgia Hulls from New Zealand and Ella Connolly.
Lewis stopped the clock at 23.05 seconds (-1.5 m/s) ahead of Hulls (23.49) and Connolly (23.50).
Cameron Myers showed his class in the metric mile ahead of the John Landy Mile at Thursday’s Maurie Plant Meet in Melbourne, with a convincing win in his second fastest ever career time of 3:34.55.
In second Jesse Hunt set a new personal best of 3:35.70, while Tokyo Olympian Jye Edwards showed a return to form following injury with third in 3:36.27. Sub- 3:40 personal bests were set by national champion Callum Davies (3:37.00), Jude Thomas (3:37.77), Connor Whiteley (3:39.27) and William Lewis (3:39.39).
Abbey Caldwell completed decimated a strong field in the 800m, pulling away over the final 200m to win by a second-and-a-half in her season opener.
The 22-year-old clocked 2:00.81 to set a new track and meet record, with Bendere Oboya second in 2:02.57 and Linden Hall third one-hundredth-of-a-second behind.
National record holder Catriona Bisset was fifth in 2:03.22, with miler Jaylah Hancock-Cameron setting a new personal best ahead of her with a 2:02.63 run.
Caldwell is looking forward to going around again over two laps at Thursday’s Maurie Plant Meet in Melbourne.
“It’s a bizarre situation, it’s so rare to have that kind of duplication of the field in five days’ time,” Caldwell said.
“I don’t think there’s any reason to go into Melbourne any differently, I will just go in and race it, and take the opportunity to put on a show for the fans of athletics.”
It had been a long time between drinks for Ellie Beer when it came to personal bests, with the 21-year-old setting a new mark of 52.25 seconds. The Tokyo Olympian’s former best of 52.53 seconds was set back in 2019.
Matt Denny suffered a rare defeat on home soil, with his 65.74m performance surpassed by a meet record by New Zealand’s Connor Bell (65.93m).
In other results:
- Ebony Lane took the win in the 100m in 11.35 seconds (+1.0) by one-hundredth-of-a-second ahead of Bree Masters.
- Jacob Despard was victorious in the men’s race in 10.28 seconds (+0.9)
- Calab Law and Christopher Ius were split by thousandths-of-a-second in the 200m, with Law just getting the nod. The pair clocked 20.84 seconds (-0.5).
- France’s Thomas Jordier won the 400m in 45.52 seconds, with national champion Luke Van Ratingen the first Australian in 46.12 seconds.
- Ed Trippas (8:32.24) and Cara Feain-Ryan (9:42.71) took out the 3000m steeplechase races
- New Zealand’s James Steyn cleared 5.45m to win the pole vault, with Tryphena Hewett winning the women’s event in 4.10m on countback from Olivia Gross
- Aiden Hinson claimed a one-centimetre victory in the triple jump ahead of Connor Murphy with a 16.34m hop, step and jump (+1.2)
- Kayla Cuba leapt to 13.77m (+0.9) to win the women’s triple jump ahead of Desleigh Owusu, who recorded a new personal best of 13.63m
- Taryn Gollshewsky won the discus in 58.67m
Photo Gallery
200 photos of all the action from the Adelaide Invitational.
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