World U20 Championships Day 4: NSW Half-milers and women’s 4x100 progress

5 August 2022

World U20 Championships Day 4: NSW Half-milers and women’s 4x100 progress

Relay events can be both exhilarating and excruciating. And that they were for NSW and Australian athletes on day four of the World U20 Championships being held in Cali this week.

With two NSW athletes on the team, the women’s 4x100m team just missed the National record to clock 44.83 and place second in their heat - easily progressing to the final. NSW’s Aleksandra Stoilova led the team off with Olivia Rose Inkster on the long second leg duty down the back straight. They run in the final tomorrow morning AEST.

A few races later the men’s 4x100m relays were held. With four heats going into a final, only the winner was guaranteed progression to the final. Australia had America and France in their heat, so needed to be at their best. The team didn’t include our fastest athlete, Jai Gordon, who was injured in his 100m heat and Calab Law who had the 200m later in the day. But it was still had fire power in new Australian 100m star of these championships, NSW’s Connor Bond, running the back straight. Australia were flying through the first three legs, and with just one leg to run had an enormous lead over the field. But tragically Australia’s anchor appeared to start running early and the third runner was unable to get the relay baton to them. Australia failed to finish with America going on to win in 39.78 seconds.

Despite a late call up to run the 200m, Olivia Rose Inkster didn’t disappoint, clocking a season best of 23.90 in the heats to progress to the semi-final. It was very close with her qualifying by just 0.02 seconds.

In the afternoon session, she started off with a terrific second leg on the relay, ahead of her 200m semi-final run where she placed eight in her heat in 23.97.

In the men’s 800m heats, NSW pair of Luke Boyes and Charlie Jeffreson ran commanding races to qualify automatically for the semis. Luke was 3rd in his heat in 1:50.49, while Charlie was second in his heat, clocking 1:51.69.

In the women’s 1500m heats, Nicola Hogg was 8th in her race, clocking 4:28.43, while in the 100m hurdles Delta Amidzovski was 7th in her heat recording a time of 14.47 seconds. Delta can look to the next World Junior which she will be age eligible for.

David Tarbotton for Athletics NSW

Image: Olivia Rose Inkster (image courtesy of Getty images for Athletics Australia)