The puzzle is complete: Strong Australian team set for Glasgow

Five Commonwealth Games champions from Birmingham return in the 63-strong open Australian team for the Glasgow Commonwealth Games along with 23 athletes in para events.

The gold medallist journeys have all been different, with career highs and injuries occurring since their last Commonwealth Games.

Matt Denny enters with the longest throw in the world so far this year – 74.04m – set in the rarefied conditions of Ramona, USA where the world’s best throwers chase record distances. Since Birmingham the Queenslander has finished 4th, 3rd and 4th in global majors and is second on the global all-time list.

Olli Hoare set an 3:30.12 Games record in winning the 1500m in Birmingham against a world class field. Injury kept him out of the 2023 World Championships and he was run out in the heats and repechage rounds at the Paris Olympics and didn’t gain selection to last year’s world championships, despite a season’s best of 3:31.15. A continued resurgence in form, capped with a 3:32.66 silver medal at the Australian Championships, sees him ranked 5th in the Commonwealth this year.

Kurtis Marschall enters in career best form, with a 6.00m PB from this year to his name and two Diamond League victories, including one over world record holder Mondo Duplantis. Baring disaster Marschall is the heavy favourite to collect his third consecutive Commonwealth gold, with the next best Commonwealth athlete jumping 5.71m so far this year.

Across her career Nina Kennedy already has Olympic (2024), world championship (2023) and Commonwealth Games gold (2022), with injury forcing her out of defending her world title last year. She’s returned to the runway with international victories and a 4.80m best clearance to her name, ranking her fourth in the Commonwealth this year ahead of what is expected to be a tight competition.

Similarly returning from injury is dual Olympic medalist Jemima Montag, who missed 2025 with a hamstring injury. She has no time on the board in the qualifying period for the 10,000m walk that takes place on the track in Glasgow, but snuck in a 1:34:41 half marathon walk performance at the Victorian titles a week prior to the qualifying period, which ranks her third Australian at that distance this year.

The quintet are joined by another 8 athletes, across 9 events, who are currently ranked number one in the the Commonwealth Top Lists so far this season:

• Abbey Caldwell in the Mile with her 3:56.12 1500m performance. The Victorian has decided to bypass the 800m (which she had earlier been automatically selected in) to focus solely on the Mile.
• Eleanor Patterson in the high jump with a recent 2.00m clearance, who will be looking to emulate the success of her international breakthrough at the Commonwealth Games in 2014 when she won as an 18-year-old. Nicola Olyslagers, with a 1.99m clearance, will be her main rival.
• Delta Amidzovski, whose 6.84m in the qualifying round of the Australian Championships remains the mark to beat. She’s joined by Brooke Buschkuehl, who took out the Australian and Oceania Championships in tight competitions, in her third Games.
• Lianna Davidson in the javelin with a 62.54m throw
• Elizabeth McMillen in the 10000m walk (42:50.13) with Rebecca Henderson a place behind with a 43:26.86. Together with Montag there’s a possibility of a podium sweep.
• Cam Myers, whose 3:29.85 is the leading mark in the world this year
• Ky Robinson, national record holder over both 5000m (12:50.82) and 10000m (26:57.07)
• Isaac Beacroft in the 10000m walk (38:54.11), off the back of his world junior record of 38:02.68 in December 2025. Beacroft will travel to Eugene the week following the Games to drop down in distance for the 5000m walk at the World Under 20 Championships. Declan Tingay and Timothy Fraser are ranked second and third respectively behind him.

A further 5 are currently ranked in the top 3 in their event in the Commonwealth Top Lists:

• Jess Hull – 3rd in the Mile with a Hull 3:57.91 1500m. Hull doubles in the 5000m.
• Mia Scerri – 2nd in the Heptathlon with her 6175 point PB set at the Australian Championships
• Liam Adcock – 2nd in the Long Jump with 8.26m
• 4x100m – both men’s and women’s quartets are ranked third

Michelle Jenneke is the most experienced member of the team, lining up in the 100m hurdles for her fourth Games.

Commonwealth ranked in the top 8 this year, but missing selection, were Dalton Di Medio (pole vault, 5th), Izobelle Louison-Roe (High Jump, 6th; contesting World Juniors), James Joyce (hammer, 7th) and Camryn Newton-Smith (heptathlon, 8th).

A notable absence is 21-year old Hayley Kitching, who finished fifth at the World Indoor Championships earlier this year, with the criteria for selection in that event including ‘Select athletes who are expected to attend the 2026 Commonwealth Games.’ Kitching leapt from 18th in the Commonwealth to 10th when she dropped her PB from 1:59.01 with her 1:57.65 second place at the NCAA Championships, just after Australian Athletics’s qualifying period had closed. Kitching is now the third ranked Australian all-time behind Jess Hull and Sarah Billings, who is Australia’s only representative in the event.

The men’s relay and individual selections have piqued interest, with a mixture of athletes picked: some who will only contest individual events, some only relays, and some both.