was about to say, how does Olyslagers miss out on the initial list?
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Australia silver medal in the 4x400m mixed relay (World athletics)
Have now qualified for the world championships.
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https://x.com/athsstats/status/1924252532706329047?s=46
Reece Holder another one who will be well known soon.
winning 400m race here.
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Has been not far away from Darren Clarks Australian record that has stood for such along time, 37 years in fact. He is just 22, so has a few years perhaps before his peak.
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Watch the run by Bree Rizzo to win the 100 m.
She is a great specimen of an athlete and cute as well, with a beautiful smile. Good victory.
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Sounds like the commentators didnât even know she was racing til she won.
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Its probably hard for Rizzo, as she probably built her profile as Bree Masters before getting married.
She is looking better than ever seen her before, strong and fast. Must be working very hard, and is not that far behind husband Matt over 100 metres.
Yeh, she is in career best form, maybe its been good luck like changing a player number.
Her back story is pretty cool coming back to sprinting at a older age.
It is amazing how many men and women sprinters are showing up. And many are teenagers breaking records with world class times.
Australian Athletics has not been this strong for decades.
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I wonder a bit whether itâs a post Covid thing, where people came to track and field during Covid due to it being something that you didnât need a big group for, and now that group sticking?
A friend much cleverer than me has a theory that the rise of womenâs professional sports like AFLW and NRLW has led to young women being more active in training and competition.
I donât care about the reasons, watching young Aussie take on the worlds best and win is just exciting.
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Itâs an interesting theory, and no doubt is a contributor. I feel like itâs a bit the other way around though. In that the rise of the pro leagues has just reflected the increase in womenâs sport across the board
Iâm not sure how much the Renaissance in track and field is riding on the increased womenâs participation though. As well as more womenâs participation (which we also saw locally in the afterglow of Cathy Freemanâs Sydney Olympics triumph), there is also an increase in the menâs participation.
I have wondered if thereâs a bit of a Bolt effect, where having one of the most recognisable athletes on the planet drives participation and performance a decade later. I also think thereâs much better coaching and access to information now than there was even 20 years ago. And I also think with the way the world has moved, with access to worldwide resources that the pull of AFL and NRL, which dominated the Aus sporting environment, has decreased significantly. For a generation who donât watch commercial TV and who consume their sport via YouTube, and Instagram and the likes, there is a whole world of possibilities, so the best athletes might see those and be inspired by those more than they were when they were fed a diet of purely AFL and NRL
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And to continue with how much participation has grown, the local Aths track for me is Coburg, and my youngest spends a lot of time there. In recent months there has been an absolute #$$& storm as the council released a long term plan for the area, which removed the track (replaced it with some lines painted on a cricket ground). Looking into the assumptions that were within the plan, it turns out that council had no idea about the amount of use the track received. They were going off figures from a 2019 study (which Iâm pretty sure was incorrect in the first place, as it didnât seem to include Little Athletics use in their weekly usage statistics, or if they did they smeared it out in a way that reduced usage to about a quarter of what it received at that point), but what is obvious, is how much the use has increased even in the period from then. On a recent Thursday night I was at the track with my youngest and there was easily over 80 people training between senior distance groups, sprints groups, junior throws and jumps groups. In my life that is unheard of for what would be considered a small local club (as opposed to the bigger clubs)
There is definitely an increase at grass roots level which is supporting that elite level of performance.
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I think Park run, is part of it but probably more so maybe running influencers.
Even Hyrox athletes are coming out and smashing distance events like marathons and 50ks, 100ks, off little training, but just more general all round fitness and toughness and mindset.
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10+ years ago there was a massive disconnect between aths clubs/associations and little athletics. that got sorted out so greater numbers got on the talent pathway
i think there was also a big emphasis on coach education/accreditation around that time as well
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