NSW Open Championships: Beacroft races to an Australian record, now #2 in the World

14 March 2024

Ahead of a key month in his career, Hills race walker Isaac Beacroft, 16, won the NSW Open 5000m walk to launch the four-day NSW Championships. The women’s winner, Alannah Pitcher, won in a 84 seconds PB, signalling she was back to her best and past two bouts of illness.

Isaac won the men’s State title in a superfast time of 19:23.96, to break his own Australian U18 and U20 records and clock the second fastest time on the U18 World all-time list. Only Russian Sergey Shirobokov in 2016 has walked faster. Shirobokov performance was achieved indoors and only added to the all-time list in January.

“The first two kilometres were pretty comfy then on the third kilometre I ramped it up, then had to dig deep on the last two and hold on to clock sub-19:30 – that was my goal,” Issac said. In December his performance would have been a World U18 best ever performance.

Issac is expected to be named next week to make his Australian team debut at the World Race Walking Teams Championship in Turkey in late April. Ahead of that he will race the trials for the World Juniors – the National U20 10,000m walk in Adelaide in early April.

After breakthrough performances in the last 12 months and especially at the January 2024 Supernova 10,000m walk in Canberra, Allanah Pitcher was grounded by two bouts of illness. At the Australian 20km Walk championships in Adelaide in February she was suffering from COVID, then with an Australian team in Taicang just 10 days ago, she became very ill before the race.

“I got food poisoning or a gastro bug, we are not too sure which, but it is pretty much the same symptoms. So I had to go on a drip the day before the race,” explained Allanah. “It’s a learning curve, you have to be so careful overseas.”

Considering Allanah’s illness, today’s performance just 10 days later, was remarkable. She clocked 21:49.49, to finish ahead of Lizzy McMillen (22:00.19), while training partners Hannah Mison and Hannah Bolton battled for the bronze with Mison taking it in 22:33.42, just ahead of Bolton with 22:37.00.

In the men’s medal battle behind Isaac Beacroft, it was a similar story. Second was 2022 world championships representative Carl Gibbons in 19:57.06, while the battle for the bronze was also between training partners, and surprisingly Jack McGinniskin (21:17.27) held off Dylan Richardson (21:24.37).

David Tarbotton for Athletics NSW
Image: Isaac Beacroft (courtesy of David Tarbotton)