Liam Adams

BIOGRAPHY

Liam Adams has a brilliant record in the green and gold, our highest ranked male in the marathon at the last two Olympics and 2022 Commonwealth Games. He has competed for Australian on 18 occasions during his 17-year membership of the National team, which commenced in 2007.

Competing in his second Olympic marathon at Tokyo 2020, Liam Adams placed 24th improving on his 31st in Rio. The Tokyo marathon, held on a course in the northern Japanese city of Sapporo, saw Liam start conservatively in the heat. He moved through halfway in 1:07:05, before digging into maintain his pace and move from 65th to 24th in the back half of the course, clocking a time of 2:15.51. Since Moneghetti’s 10th in Sydney, over the last two decades only one Aussies has placed higher than Liam.
"I'm really happy with it. I was hoping for top-30. I probably went out a bit too hard, I was inspired by Sinead yesterday, and I died a little bit towards the end but on the whole it was a good result."

Liam just missed the podium at the 2022 Commonwealth Games, placing fourth, just seven second behind the bronze medallist. In July 2023 he was the first Australian in the Gold Coast marathon clocking a personal best time of 2:08.39 to become the sixth fastest in Australian history. He represented Australia on his 18th National team in 2024 at the world cross country championships.

+ + + + +
Liam was spotted at primary school as having long-distance potential. He competed in the nationals for cross-country, winning a medal.

At 17, in 2004, he won the national junior 5000m championship, then later that year he claimed the national junior cross country title. He closed his junior career with his 5000m PB of 14:30. 

As a senior, he competed at many major championships - World Cross Country, World University Cross Country, World Half Marathon and World University Games. As a kid he dreamed of competing in the Olympics but except for 36th at the 2010 World Cross Country he considered he was just not getting to the level he wanted.

With no intention of chasing an Olympic 10,000m qualifier, as he felt out of form and was just in America after he won a flight as a prize, in April 2012 he just missed the 10,000m standard by a few seconds clocking 28:11 at Stanford. This disappointment spurred him to move up to the marathon, where he ran a tremendous 2:14.09 on debut in October 2013 in Melbourne. This performance earned him Commonwealth Games selection, where he placed an impressive seventh in a personal best 2:13.49 in Glasgow. 

Injured after Glasgow, the chase was now on for a Rio Olympic qualifier. In his first attempt, in the best shape of his life at the Chicago marathon in October 2015 he woke to windy conditions. At 22km his hamstring twinged and kept pulling. He stopped four times and being limited he finished in 2:16.09. “It was a qualifier but I knew it wouldn’t be fast enough.” In March 2016 he made another attempt, at Lake Biwa in Japan. Quick through the half with 64:40 he leant over to grab a drink and twinged the opposite hamstring deciding to withdraw at the 37km mark to focus on another race. With six weeks remaining to set a fast time he received a late entry into the Warsaw Marathon. Despite battling blisters he nailed it, clocking 2:14.59 and ensured his Olympic debut.

His build up to Rio was again rocky, suffering Gastro in the pre-Games camp and on race day, in wet conditions, he slipped at the start and strained his ankle. He ran conservatively for the first half as he could feel the ankle, then he decided to give it a crack in the second half and ran well until 30k but after taking a drink he found it a battle. The last 6 or 7 km were particularly a real grind, but he was still the first Aussie across the line, finishing in a commendable 31st place.

In 2017 he ran a PB 2:12.52 in the Berlin Marathon, but lost his Adidas sponsorship. It led him to wearing an iconic tradie singlet in the 2018 Melbourne Marathon. In 2018 he placed fifth in the warm Gold Coast Commonwealth Games marathon. “It was an absolutely brutal day. I blew up, and there was carnage all around me,” he recalled. 

In 2019 he was again in pursuit of qualification for the Tokyo Olympics. In July on the Gold Coast he ran a 76 seconds PB of 2:11.36, but was agonisingly six seconds outside the Olympic standard. With COVID sweeping the world, in one of the last marathons on 10 March 2020 he posted a PB of 2:10.48

+ + + + +

Career: After studying Exercise Science, he returned to study completing an Electrotechnology-electrician certificate and now is an electrician…..Memorable performance: At the 2008 World Cross Country Championships he placed a surprise second. Held in France in April it was run in trying conditions where it snowed during the race…..Who does he admire: Yuki Kawauchi – Japanese athlete known as citizen runner as he runs an average of one marathon a month…..Advise to other marathoners: The marathon is a brutal event and you put in hard work, but it doesn’t always work out. But that hard work is not wasted and is stored there. Don’t let a bad result dishearten you.

@ 20 May 24 david.tarbotton@athletics.org.au