NSW Championships Day 3 – Australian records for Lovell, title #11 for Hulley, as Hurdlers fly

5 March 2023

NSW Championships Day 3 – Australian records for Lovell, title #11 for Hulley, as Hurdlers fly

NSW athletes responded with a stack of quality performances in the near perfect warm and tailwind conditions for the 126th NSW Track and Field Championships held at Homebush over the weekend.

Second Australian record in a week for Mali Lovell

For the second consecutive weekend, Mali Lovell has lowered her a number of Australian T36 200m records. She broke her own Australian U20, open and allcomers records. After clocking 30.45 last week, she clocked 30.43 today (Sunday). She started the day with a slightly illegal windy (2.2m/s) time of 30.26.

Record shattering hurdlers: Michelle Jenneke and Emily Britton

Through the heats and finals of the 100m hurdles Michelle Jenneke and Emily Britton clocked a series of sensational marks. Michelle clocked 12.80w (2.4) in the heat and 12.69 (1.4) in the final. Her time was the fastest in Australia for five years, and a world champs qualifier – just the third by an Aussie this summer.

Emily Britton continued to shatter her PB. Her heat and final times of 13.18 and 13.09 were her third and fourth consecutive PBs and she has this summer moved from #40 Australian all-time to #15 now.

But behind these performances there was more action. In fourth Imogen Breslin set a PB of 13.31 (#19 Australian all-time), in fifth Tiahna Skelton smashed her PB running 13.76. Sixth placed Carla Takchi ran a PB 13.76, seventh placed Maya Piras smashed her PB in the heat and final landing at 13.93.

Jacob McCorry now sixth fastest ever

It was a third consecutive PB this summer in the 110m hurdles for Jacob McCorry. Starting at 13.82, back in 2019, under new coach Jacob McCorry this summer he has ran 13.78, then 13.66 and today 13.59. He moved from #17 to equal #6 Australian all-time. In the last eight years, only Nick Hough has hurdled quicker.

Dramatic women’s long jump competition

With a few fouls and only a 6.44m jump on the board, National champion Sam Dale was under pressure in the long jump, then in the final round of the open women’s long jump the action exploded. World U20 champs athlete Katie Gunn, in fourth, started the ball rolling, leaping 6.41m to smash her previous best of 6.23m, moving up 31 places on the Australian all-time list. She was now just 3cm behind the leader Dale. Next was another teenager Alyssa Lowe, who set her third PB this summer, after starting at 6.06m, she hit the sand at 6.38m, to move into third place. Originally second, Liz Hedding tried to respond, leaping 6.24m – her best distance for three years. Final to jump, Sam Dale was not clear on Gunn’s distance and thought she might be in second. She responded with a leap of 6.52m, to clinch the title.

#11 for Alex Hulley

Extraordinary longevity by Alex Hulley, who is still only 25, claimed her 11th consecutive open women’s hammer throw title. Battling a back injury, it was a little below par winning distance of 62.81m for Alex. In recent decades, a number of athletes have won over 10 titles, but only one other was consecutive – Clay Cross in the shot in the ‘90s and ‘00s.

Six rounds in the decathlon field events might better suit Alec Diamond

Commonwealth Games decathlete Alec Diamond is most familiar with just three rounds in his field events, but he took a liking to six round championship format on the weekend. In both the long jump and discus events he claimed the titles with last round efforts.

In the long jump, he had been relegated to silver by Liam Fairweather’s 7.59m last jump, but on the very next attempt, his last, Alec responded clearing 7.61m for a 2cm win. In the discus, going into the last round Alec was in third, some three metres behind the leaders, but the competitive 10-eventer launched the discus out to 47.43m to win by 41cm. It was his longest throw for two years.

Lizzy McMillen leads outstanding race walk

The recent improvement of junior race walking in Australia, and particularly in NSW were on show on Saturday night’s open 5000m walk, as seven of the top-11 clocked personal bests, including World Race Walking Teams Championship bronze medallists Allanah Pitcher. The winner of the open 5000m walk was 18-year-old Lizzy McMillen in a very fast time of 21:51.00. It was another brilliantly consistent time by the teenager, who two weeks ago clocked 21:43.17 – the fourth fastest time in Australian U20 history.

Also of note were two outstanding 15-year-olds Zoe Woods with 23:47.05 and Sienna Pitcher clocking 23:58.48.

Commonwealth Youth Games qualifiers

No surprise Chelsy Wayne’s 49.94m winning discus throw was another qualifier for her.

Tali Baltineshter’s 49.21m last week at the NSW juniors with a 500g javelin was just short of the 49.78m CYG standard. At the NSW open championships, the 16-year-old, using the 600g implement added three metres to her PB to hit 46.55m and claim the open silver medal. She is certainly progressing towards a qualifier very soon. North Coast’s Jade Kitching twice came within half a second of the 800m standard as he took nearly two seconds off his half-mile PB. Chasing the standard of 1:50.70, he hit 1:51.00 in the heat and backed that up with 1:50.85 in the final for fourth place.

A few athletes who competed on the weekend and are within range of their first qualifier include: Ella Penman, Shari Hurdman, Cody Hasler and Amelia May.

Officials serving above and beyond the call

As NSW continues to be the finest comps/photo-finish team in the Australia, with regularly providing split times for track events from 800m up, on Saturday night they set-up extra photo finish equipment ready to clock the 100m events if they were run right to left to take advantage of the tail wind.

Another unique operation at State level was a number of parents of para athletes assisting on laptops during the competition to provide ‘live’ calculations for field events, ensuring when the event was reordered after three rounds it reflected the placing of the athletes.

David Tarbotton for Athletics NSW
Image: Jacob McCorry 110m hurdles (courtesy of David Tarbotton)