A sprint double from World Indoor silver medallist Lachlan Kennedy highlighted the Maurie Plant Meet in Melbourne.
As favourite for the 100m it was no surprise when he took out the event, but victory in the 200m over the meet’s drawcard athlete, Gout Gout, was the upset of the night.
A capacity crowd of 10,000 spectators created an atmosphere at Lakeside rivalling that of Nitro Athletics in 2017. On those occasions Melbourne athletics fans turned out to see Usain Bolt. Last night they came to see Gout Gout, the 17-year-old often compared to the world’s greatest ever sprinter for his comparable junior times and fluid style. And they left talking of an emerging rivalry of two genuine sprint stars that could take the sport to new heights over the next 7 years to the Brisbane 2032 Olympics.
Kennedy won a silver medal at last weekend’s World Indoor Championships over 60m and has spoken of his goal to break 10 seconds in the 100m this season. Over 200m he had a modest personal best of 20.93 seconds and with Olympic champion Letsile Toogo running the 400m at the meet, the expectation was that it would be Gout who would take out the final event of the night.
Kennedy, a powerful starter led off the bend from Gout, a notorious slower starter with world class top end speed. But Kennedy was able to hold him off, for a new personal best of 20.26 seconds (+0.4), the fastest time ever run at Lakeside. Gout was four-hundredths-of-a-second behind in 20.30s.
“The crowd here is insane, I’ve never run in Australia in front of a crowd like this before. They really fuelled me to keep going and hold G-man off. I mean, what a race, my goal was to go out hard and I was just trying to hold him off and I got lucky this time,” Kennedy said.
Gout was gracious in defeat in what was the biggest meet of his career so far.
“Like people say, winning feels great, coming second feels bad and third feels even worse, so coming second just puts fuel to my fire and it ignites that burn,” Gout said.
“The silence was crazy out there. The silence was loud as people say, you could hear a pin drop and then suddenly everyone was screaming my name at the top of their lungs. This is something not a lot of people can say they experience, I’m just taking it step-by-step and enjoying the moment.”
Earlier in the night, Kennedy won the 100m in 10.17 (-1.1) defeating national champion Sebastian Sultana (10.29) and a resurgent Rohan Browning (10.30).
A 68.17m meet record in the discus by Olympic bronze medallist Matt Denny was the highlight in the field, with the Queenslander buoyed by the crowd and comparing the atmosphere to the Paris Olympics.
“Today was good. You know, we’re just not in peak form just yet. We’re waiting for a couple of weeks for the comps in the USA but it was fun out there. I feel like 8000-10,000 Australians is worth about 80,000 Frenchmen, so there was such a great buzz out there.”
Teenagers Cam Myers and Claudia Hollingsworth showed more experienced rivals a clean pair of heels taking out the 1500m in meet records of 3:34.98 and 4:05.97 respectively.
Myers raced boldly from the front, even nudging the pacemaker off the track as the tempo dropped mid-race. He held off a fast finish from national champion Adam Spencer (3:35.52) while Jude Thomas took third in a photo finish from Olli Hoare, with both credited with the same time of 3:36.48.
Hollingsworth out kicked Sarah Billings (4:06.37), Linden Hall (4:06.89) and Abbey Caldwell (4:06.91) in a race that sets up an enthralling encounter at the Australian Championships, where they will be joined by Olympic silver medallist Jessica Hull and World Indoor 3000m fourth place getter, Georgia Griffith. Griffith ran a gallant second in the 3000m in 8:35.10, less than a second behind Ethiopia’s Fentaye Belayneh (8:34.30).
In the men’s 5000m a heroic run to the line by Seth O’Donnell with four laps to go almost took the victory, but World Indoor 3000m bronze medallist Ky Robinson had enough to run him down over the final lap for a 13:13.17 victory.
O’Donnell has a cult following after a solo 13:20 run earlier in the month at Box Hill and what would have been a large 1500m personal best in the vicinity of 3:36 but for the photo-finish failing when the lights went out at the Victorian Milers Club meet at Doncaster, and was rewarded with a new personal best of 13:14.57.
Lianna Davidson had the biggest victory of her career, taking out the javelin in 61.06m ahead of Mackenzie Little (59.66m). Last week the 22-year-old set a new personal best of 63.79m in the US, where she attends the University of Georgia.
“Australian javelin is crazy! I remember at the Tokyo Olympics we had three in the top eight. That level makes it super hard to make teams, but it’s inspiring because we have such a rich history and it makes you want to get better,” Davidson said before the meet.
Eleanor Patterson cleared 1.94m in the high jump a week after winning silver at the World Indoor Championships. Tomohiro Shinno won the men’s event in 2.20m.
Two-time Olympian Ellie Beer set a new personal best of 51.35s in a second-and-a-half victory. Botwanan relay teammates Bayapo Nori (45.14), Letsile Tebogo (45.26) and Leungo Scotch (45.60) swept the podium in the men’s race.
Bree Rizzo was dominant in the 100m with a 11.35s (+1.1) while Kristie Edwards backed up her 200m victory from Sydney with a 23.18 second performance.
Japanese athletes Yumi Tanaka (13.11s, +0.5) and Tatsuki Abe (13.57s, +0.9) took out the 100m and 110m hurdles respectively, the latter being a track record.
In the 800m Peyton Craig out kicked national champion Luke Boyes 1:46.45 to 1:46.73, while Tess Kirsopp-Cole won the women’s race in 2:02.91 from Carley Thomas (2:03.14).
America’s Jillian Shippee set a meet record of 71.26m in the hammer while Connor Murphy took out the triple jump in 16.23m (-1.3).
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