Source : ABC NEWS
Athletics made the headlines in Australia multiple times in 2024.
Nina Kennedy won a gold medal in the pole vault at both the Paris Olympics and the World Championships.
Jessica Hull broke the world 2,000-metre record and claimed an Olympic silver medal, finishing just behind the greatest of all time.
Meanwhile, 16-year-old Gout Gout broke the country’s longest-standing senior record in the men’s 200m, running faster than Usain Bolt did at the same age.
It feels like there’s a shift in the sport, where Australians — who used to only associate with athletics once every four years — have really started to take notice.
It’s now making headlines, on the back page of the paper, and leading the sport bulletins in the 7pm News.
Gout Gout winning the 200m final in record time during the Australian all schools athletics championships. (AAP: Jono Searle)
And it’s all because the athletes — who track and field fanatics have known about for years — have stepped up to another level, catching the attention and the imagination of the nation.
This year has been the best we’ve seen from the sport, possibly ever.
“I feel like if you had a said at the start of the year, we’d have seven Olympic medallists … multiple Paralympic medallists … 10 World Junior medallists, an age world record that beats Usain Bolt, you probably would have called bulls*** pretty quickly,” athletics commentator Mitch Dyer said.
“It’s something that we haven’t seen in Australia, at least in the last 30 to 40 years.”
Nina Kennedy reacts after a successful attempt in the women’s pole vault during the diamond league final 2024 athletics meet in Brussels in September. (AP: Frederic Sierakowski)
A history-making Olympics
The Paris Olympic Games was the best performance from an Australian athletics team since Melbourne in 1956.
The team brought home seven medals — one gold, two silver and four bronze — to claim the best Olympics result in 68 years.
It’s so hard to put into a few lines what unfolded in Paris.
Kennedy’s gold medal-winning pole vault of 4.90m was the first gold medal from an Australian woman in a field event.
But she wasn’t the only woman who dominated in the field — Nicola Olyslagers and Eleanor Patterson won silver and bronze respectively in the high jump.
And while Hull won silver, to many it felt like gold.
Silver medallist Jessica Hull celebrates with others on day 15 of the Paris Olympics. (Getty Images: Michael Steele)
She was only beaten by world record holder Faith Kipyegon who won her third consecutive 1,500 metre Olympic title.
It was the first time an Australian woman had medalled in the event at the Olympics.
Esteemed middle- and long-distance running coach Dick Telford said athletes like Hull had put the disciplines on show.
“We’ve got a lot of middle distance and distance runners, females and males, that are revolutionising athletics.
“It’s really exciting to see … records will get broken as we find new ways to train, people with superior genetic ability, better shoes to wear and so on.”
The Paralympics was another mark of the nation’s success in athletics, where Australian athletes claimed three gold medals.
Two of those were to James Turner who broke the men’s T36 400m world record and the Paralympic record in the 100m.
Veteran Vanessa Low also set a world record in the women’s T61 long jump, with a huge leap of 5.45m.
James Turner celebrates after winning Paris Paralympic gold. (Reuters: Stephanie Lecocq)
The next generation
We can’t take away the achievements of the Melbourne Olympics, it still stands as the best performance from an Australian team.
But what separates this year from previous successful years is the depth and success of Australian juniors.
This year’s World Athletics Under 20 Championships in Peru cemented Australia’s juniors as the best crop of emerging talent we’ve ever seen.
The team won 14 medals and placed second, only behind the USA.
Torrie Lewis looks at the results screen after competing in the women’s 100m final during the 2024 Maurie Plant Meet in February.
(Getty Images: Daniel Pockett)
Medals included gold to Delta Amidzovski in long jump and six individual silvers to Cameron Myers in the 1,500m, sprinter Torrie Lewis and Claudia Hollingsworth over 800m.
Keep in mind, several of these athletes had already competed at the Olympics just months earlier.
“If I were to look at it with an overall lens, and this is without me being a full historian, the depth of what we have in the country is the deepest we’ve ever had yet,” Dyer said.
“We’re doing this now from kids that are 16 all the way up to some of our major winners who were approaching 30.”
A good time to watch athletics
Gout Gout wins the final of the under-18s 200m in a national record time of 20.04 seconds during the 2024 Australian all schools athletics championships. (Getty Images: Cameron Spencer)
With the depth of talent in Australia at the moment, it’s hard not to get excited about what the future holds — particularly looking ahead to the Brisbane 2032 Games.
As Gout tore down the home straight on his way to breaking the Australian men’s 200m record, it was like watching the future and the present at the same time.
It seems like so long ago, but we also can’t forget 19-year-old Torrie Lewis, who broke the Australian women’s 100m record in January.
The Australian Sports Commission seems equally as excited and has boosted funding for athletics to make it one of Australia’s top-funded Olympic and Paralympic sports.
“These are guys that are 16 to 18 years old, so you think about eight years’ time, that’s 24 to 26 years old, that’s the prime,” Dyer said.
Claudia Hollingsworth wins the women’s 800m during the Australian track and field championships in 2024. (AAP: Matt Turner)
“If you can keep these athletes, first of all healthy but second of all enjoying it, and you give them that moment of a home games, I couldn’t even quantify what possibly could happen.
“We need to wrap our arms around them and really support them and their personalities, support the people they are and give them that encouragement to be the best version of themselves.”
While the Brisbane Olympics are still years away, it will come around quickly and now is the time to familiarise yourself with these names.
Not just Gout Gout, but Torrie Lewis, Cameron Myers, Peyton Craig, Claudia Hollingsworth, Delta Amidzovski, Izobelle Louison-Roe and the plethora of talent in Australian athletics at the moment.
Watch them more regularly, turn on the livestreams of the national championships in April and World Championships in September and enjoy what is a thrilling time to be an athletics fan.
