With three and a half minutes of near perfection, Cameron Myers wiped away a year of disappointment. His talent at 18-years-old is hardly news, but a candid assessment after claiming the Australian title reveals the growth that has locked in his World Championships debut.
Before the arrival of Gout Gout, Myers was Australia’s man. With his 26th birthday set to fall on the eve of the 2032 Olympic Games in Brisbane and the middle-distance prodigy breaking records every time he touched the track, the kid from Canberra could do no wrong.
Gunning for an Olympic berth at last year’s 2024 Australian Athletics Championships, the teenager slipped to fifth place of the Men’s 1500m, only opening up on the anguish the result caused him after bouncing back to win the 2025 Australian title in emphatic fashion.
“I guess it’s just not having the fear of racing these guys like I did last year, where I came into the championships pretty rattled. Just racing guys like Ollie [Hoare] and Stewy [McSweyn], they’re the guys that I watched as a kid and looked up to,” Myers said.
“It’s a weird experience when you then go and compete with them. It’s like somewhere subconsciously that they’re better than you and I think now that I’m starting to be myself in that respect, that I can be competitive with them.
“I know on paper that I look like I belong, but you struggle to really think that you’re the best. It requires a certain amount of confidence going into every race if you want to win it and I just didn’t have it last year.”
Being competitive is an understatement from the man who minutes earlier delivered a front-running masterclass to dismantle the field including Commonwealth champion Oliver Hoare and defending champion Adam Spencer in one of the hottest events of the championships, winning in 3:34.39 after a slow start to proceedings.
“I got to 500m to go, and I didn’t quite have the gap that I knew I probably needed to have. Dick [Telford], my coach, said that I’ve got to have a gap on the field by about 2-3m with 300m to go because these guys can kick pretty hard. I knew that I didn’t have that, but I was able to hold on, so that’s the important part,” Myers said.
“Sometimes in this sport you really do need a disappointing experience just to get yourself going and get yourself fired up again, so I think that was so important for my development as an athlete and hopefully I can continue with that momentum that I’ve got now.”
Myers’ momentum will hit maximum velocity at the 2025 World Athletics Championships which he was announced for today, with his preparation for the September championships in Tokyo to include stops in Oslo, Ostrava and Eugene.
A silver medallist at the 2024 World Under 20 Championships in Lima last August, Myers is not afraid to dream big on his first Australian team in the Senior ranks, having set World Under 20 Records in the Mile, Mile Short Track and 1500m Short Track earlier this year:
“From there, it’s honestly just get through each round and then in the final. If I’m there, I want to contend for medal,” Myers said.
“I’m not disappointed like I was last year, it’s more just how I can use that disappointment to actually improve as an athlete. When you go and change things that you know aren’t obviously working, I think that’s when you’re going to really reap the rewards.”
By Lachlan Moorhouse, Australian Athletics
Posted 23/4/2025
