Australians Bound for Super Suva Show | PREVIEW Oceania Athletic Championships
Published Thu 30 May 2024
An eight-day festival of athletics awaits in Suva, Fiji as the region’s best athletes touch down for the 2024 Oceania Athletic Championships, with a star-studded Australian contingent continuing their paths to Paris, Peru and beyond.
Taking place from June 1-8, the Oceania Athletic Championships ranks above World Athletics Continental Tour Gold meets and equal to a meet as prestigious as the European Championships, offering significant world ranking points and crucial for athletes in qualifying for Paris 2024 and the Tokyo 2025 World Athletics Championships.
With a wide range of events across the program, read on to preview some of the feature events on each day of the championships.
For more information including entry lists and timetables for the 2024 Oceania Athletic Championships, Oceania Invite, CLICK HERE. More information regarding livestream will be available soon.
Day 1 – Oceania Invite
While the Oceania Athletic Championships span eight days as the region’s best athletes descend upon Suva, athletics fans will be served an entre of action with the Oceania Invite coinciding with Day One of competition – a World Athletics Continental Tour Bronze Meet.
Warming up the HFC Bank Stadium will be a host of Australian stars including in-form javelin thrower Cameron McEntyre (Angus McEntyre) who launched to a personal best of 82.01m to take out the Seiki Golden Grand Prix earlier this month, coming up against resurgent World Under 20 champion Nash Lowis (Lukas Cannon).
Another enticing battle will see a rematch of the national podium in the 110m Hurdles, as Chris Douglas (Joey Woods) looks to bolster his Olympic bid alongside Tayleb Willis (Kyle Vander-Kuyp) and Nick Andrews (Tim O’Neil), while Jacob McCorry (Alex Stewart) holds the fastest personal best in the field with 13.48 (+0.8).
Australia’s long jumpers will continue their quest for world ranking points as back-to-back World Championships representative Samantha Dale (Andrew Murphy) competes to improve upon her 6.50m seasons best, joined in the sandpit by national medallists Tomysha Clark (Renae Clark) and Elizabeth Hedding (Alex Stewart).
Day 2 – Heptathlon
Breakthrough seasons from Australia’s premier heptathletes Tori West (QLD, Eric Brown) and Camryn Newton-Smith (QLD, Ralph Newton) have landed Paris in their sights, and with limited competition opportunities remaining prior to the 2024 Olympic Games – their fate will largely be decided by the numbers they can produce at the Oceania Championships in Fiji.
Fresh off a career-best score of 6245 for sixth place at the prestigious Hypomeeting in Gotzis, West propelled herself into Olympic competition alongside Newton-Smith, who scored 6180 points to be crowned the 2024 Australian champion in Adelaide.
While West posted five individual event personal bests within her Gotzis performance, headed by a 23.67 (+0.9) showing over 200m and closing act of 2:16.41 in the 800m, Newton-Smith will look to double down on her national title glory by maintaining in her ascendency in both High Jump (1.84m) and Long Jump (6.27m).
A dream scenario would see the contest come down to the final event, with a two-lap showdown to decide the Oceania title as both women pile on the points in their quest to land in the top-24 on the Road to Paris to secure Olympic qualification.
Day 3 – Decathlon
Similar to the equation on for the Australia’s female multi-eventers, the men find themselves in an Olympic-qualifying battle of their own led by Tokyo bronze medallist Ash Moloney (QLD, Steve Rippon).
With Moloney currently ranked 24th and Daniel Golubovic (QLD, Paul Pearce) sitting in 22nd with the top-24 to qualify for Paris, both men will be out to post scores well over the 8000 point barrier, alongside Cedric Dubler (QLD, Chris Gaviglio) who sits in 39th.
Setting a new Oceania record of 8643 points when claiming bronze at the Tokyo Games, 24-year-old Moloney is building back to his best with a standout 8367 points performance at this month’s Hypomeeting in Gotzis, registering the third highest score of his career and seventh best score to date in 2024 worldwide.
The Queenslander will have to back it up in Fiji, while Golubovic is yet to reveal his cards in 2024, with just a handful of individual performances to his name earlier this year.
Two-time Olympian Dubler has demonstrated the capacity to get it right under pressure and with a score of 8334 points at the Queensland Combined Event Championships in December, you can count on the seasoned veteran being more than competitive when touching down in Suva.
Day 4 – Under 18 Girls Discus
One of 13 athletes selected for the 2024 World Under 20 Championships to also be competing in Fiji, Chelsy Wayne (NSW, Dennis Knowles) is poised to ramp up her Peru preparations in the Under 18 Discus.
Claiming the Australian Under 20 title in Adelaide at only 16-years-old, Wayne approaches in career-best form with a throw of 52.16m to cement her position on two international teams in 2024 as the rising star garners experience on the world stage.
Posting 11 qualifying performances over the 49.00m mark for the World Under 20 Championships to be held in Lima this August, Wayne has proven herself as a model of consistency and will be out to improve on the silver medal she won at the 2023 Commonwealth Youth Games.
Day 5 – Men’s and Women’s 100m
The main event on any athletics program, Australia’s fastest men and women are primed to take on the region’s best down the straight at HFC Bank Stadium.
Freshly crowned national champion Sebastian Sultana (NSW, Greg Smith) has emerged as the bolter of 2024 both figuratively and literally, with the 18-year-old rising to stardom in Adelaide before delivering a world-class leg in Australia’s Paris-bound Men’s 4x100m outfit at the World Relay Championships in the Bahamas.
10.01-second man Rohan Browning (NSW, Andrew Murphy) will pick up the gauntlet in a bid to reassert his dominance at the top of the Australian sprinting ranks, but more importantly steady his Olympic qualifying campaign, building back from injury to spearhead the field including Josh Azzopardi (NSW, Rob Marks) and Trans-Tasman rival Tiaan Whelpton (NZ) who both boast international experience.
For the women, reigning national champion Naa Anang (QLD, Bronwyn Thompson) will stretch her legs for the first time since claiming the Australian title in Adelaide and is set to be challenged by silver medallist Ella Connolly (NSW, Andrew Murphy) and the fast-starting Ebony Lane (VIC, Chris Dale) – both racing for the first time since punching Australia’s ticket to Paris in the Women’s 4x100m at the World Relay Championships.
Ready to fire down the straight in the Para ranks, Commonwealth Games representative Anthony Jordan (VIC, Tony Marsh, T47) will take on the likes of Alexander McKillop (TAS, Rosie Coleman, T36) and Jackson Love (NSW, Rob Marks, T35) in a star-studded clash as the trio continue their Paralympic ascent.
Day 6 – Men’s Long Jump
Three of Australia’s top-12 long jumpers in history are locked and loaded to hit the runway in Suva, as three-time Olympian Henry Frayne (QLD) keeps his dream of a fourth Olympic berth alive alongside Darcy Roper (QLD, Luke Donatini) and Liam Adcock (QLD, Andrew Murphy).
Little separates the trio on paper in 2024 with Roper holding an 8.14m (+0.4) seasons best jumped in the qualifying round of the Australian Championships, before encountering trouble in the final where Adcock claimed silver with 8.03m (0.0) and Frayne the bronze with 7.93m (-0.4) behind national champion Chris Mitrevski.
With the top-32 jumpers on the Road to Paris to qualify for the Olympic Games, the winner at the Oceania Championships will be rewarded with crucial world ranking points to propel themselves further into contention, with all three currently sitting narrowly outside the quota allocation as the qualification race heats up globally.
Day 7 – Women’s 100m Hurdles
Storylines flow in the 100m Hurdles to be held on Day Seven in Suva as Tokyo Olympian Liz Clay (QLD, David Reid & Sharon Hannan) looks to strengthen her Paris campaign, while Celeste Mucci (VIC, Darren Clark) continues her comeback from hamstring surgery and Danielle Shaw (VIC, Peter Benifer) keeps rising to the occasion.
Clocking a series of 12.9-second runs this year, Clay looks ready to break back towards her 12.71 personal best in Suva, and more importantly close in on the 12.77 Olympic qualification standard as she returns to racing after claiming silver at the 2024 Chemist Warehouse Australian Championships.
Just months after hamstring surgery, Mucci returned under the 13-second barrier last week in Austria with a windy 12.96 (+2.4) run to stake her claim for the title and all-important points, while Shaw achieved the same feat for the first time with a 12.98 (+0.2) run in Japan.
World Championships representative Adrine Monagi (PNG) adds further credentials to the international affair.
Adding to the action on Day Seven, two-time world champion Cameron Crombie (ACT, Matt Beckenham, T38) will trade the shot put for the runway as he takes to the Men’s Long Jump Ambulatory, continuing his quest for a Paralympic berth with no shot put on the program in Paris.
Day 8 – Emerging Para Talent
Three emerging para athletes will fly the Aussie flag on the last day of the Oceania Athletics Championships as they gain crucial international competition experience and hone in their craft against the region’s top performers.
Already an Australian record holder at 44.47m, javelin thrower Matthew Thompson (ACT, F46) will compete as the sole Australian in the Men’s Javelin Ambulant on Day 8, looking to come close to his lifetime best from 2017.
In the Women’s 1500m Ambulant event, Belinda Scott (NSW, T20) toes the line against her international counterparts, looking to emulate the footsteps of Australian record holder and World Para Athletics Championships Annabelle Colman, who holds the record at 4:40.58. Scott most recently ran a personal best time of 5:35.64 at the Chemist Warehouse Australian Athletics Championships where she won bronze.
Matthew Sheppard (QLD, F56) competes in the Javelin after competing earlier in the week in the shot put and discus throw. The versatile athlete most recently sailed the javelin to a personal best of 21.16 to win silver at the Australian Athletics Championships, defeated only by Morea Maraois from Papua New Guinea.
By Lachlan Moorhouse, Athletics Australia
Posted: 30/5/2024
