Birmingham Marathon | Aussies Ready To Go The Distance

Less than 12 hours remains before Australia’s athletics contingent take their marks at the 2022 Commonwealth Games. Nine athletes will compete across four events on Day 2, as our marathoners take to the roads of Birmingham. 

Made up of two distinct sections, the Commonwealth Games marathon course includes an 18km loop which athletes will complete twice, followed by a shorter section of 6.2km which will see them run past some of Birmingham’s most well-known hotspots including Edgbaston Stadium, Stirchley, Bournville, Selly Oak and Arena Birmingham before finishing in Victoria Square. 

Men’s T54 race - 7am BST | 4pm AEST

Jake Lappin makes a sentimental return to the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. First making himself known at the Delhi edition of the Games, he was one of three Australians to qualify for the men’s 1500m final. Since then, he has lit up the tracks at two Paralympic Games and went on to win bronze in front of a roaring home crowd in the same track event on the Gold Coast.

Today, he’ll make his first appearance from two in the Men’s Marathon T54 as the sole competitor donning the green and gold. Lappin will battle it out with seven other world-class athletes for one of Australia’s first medals on the road but will have his work cut out for him as the sixth seeded athlete in the field. 

Lappin boasts a personal best of 1:37:32 and will come head-to-head with red-hot favourite Canada’s Josh Cassidy (1:18.25 PB) as well as hometown hero David Weir (1:26:17) as he duels for another Commonwealth Games medal. Taking to the roads tomorrow will also be another milestone in Lappin’s career after missing out on selection to the Tokyo Paralympic Games, having been unable to face off against his international competitors to qualify in some of the distance events he’s become known for. 

Women’s T54 race - 7.02 BST

Australia will go in with a two-pronged attack as gold medal prospect Madison de Rozario and seven-time Paralympian Christie Dawes take on two of England’s finest wheelchair marathoners in Shelley Oxley-Woods and Eden Rainbow-Cooper. The Ashes of wheelchair racing if you will, the four women complete the field for the Women’s Marathon T54 and will race for just two medals.

De Rozario has gone from strength to strength over the past year after becoming the first Australian female marathoner to win the wheelchair race at the Paralympic Games and has since become the first Australian wheelchair athlete to claim the top spot in the New York Marathon. While she is by far the favourite for gold, the 2021 Australian Paralympian of the Year won’t have it easy, with her racing chair damaged in transit. While a short term fix has been made to her chair to allow it to stabilise and steer correctly, de Rozario will be relying on her speed and ability to think quickly to claim her first gold of the Commonwealth meet. 

Although Dawes hasn’t raced a marathon in some time with travel restrictions to blame, the seasoned campaigner will lean on her years of experience tackling some of the most testing marathons to land herself a position on the podium. Dawes is also a cut above the English duo, with a personal time of 1:37:14 surpassing Oxley Wood’s 1:40:49 and Rainbow-Cooper’s 2:08:04.

Men’s Marathon - 9am BST

Liam Adams, a two-time Olympian, and Andy Buchanan, an Australian debutant, will make up the Australian contingent competing in the Men’s Marathon today.
We last saw Adams in Tokyo, where the electrician competed in his second Olympic marathon and placed 24th, improving on his 31st placing in Rio. This time around the 42.2km course, Adams will be hoping to improve on his 7th place on the streets of Glasgow in 2014 and fifth on the Gold Coast four years ago. Adams will start the race with the fifth fastest personal best in the field of 20. 

A well-credentialled cross country athlete, Andy Buchanan makes his Australian debut on a different surface as he tackles the marathon - a distance he has only completed one before, when producing a swift 2:12:23 at the Hamburg Marathon this year. The teacher from Bendigo may not have much experience behind him, but his time from Hamburg would suggest that he will be up amongst the Commonwealth’s best on completion of the grueling course.

Women’s Marathon - 10.30am BST

Only three Australian women have been crowned as the Queens of the Commonwealth Marathon, with Lisa Martin claiming gold in 1986, and Heather Turland and Kerryn McCann both clinching the titles twice. This year, a trio of Australia’s best ever marathoners will line up for their shot at Commonwealth glory. Australian number three on the all-time list, Sinead Diver, five-time campaigner Eloise Wellings and Gold Coast bronze medallist Jessica Stenson will toe the line. 

Upon her Olympic debut in Tokyo, Diver placed an outstanding 10th - the highest placing for an Australian woman in the Olympic Marathon since Lisa Ondieki won silver in 1988 - and will be a genuine chance for a medal when she competes at her maiden Commonwealth Games. Diver is the fourth fastest in the field with a personal best time of 2:24:11. The Irish native will be spurred on by her family and friends watching on from the grounds.

Wellings has only run one marathon prior to these Games but became the third fastest Australian of all-time in the event when running 2:25:10 in Nagoya, Japan in March this year. With five Games behind her, Eloise is well versed in Commonwealth competition having previously raced at four other editions on the track, and has been motivated to excel on the roads after the birth of her second child in 2019.

Less than two years after her son was born, Jessica Stenson clocked a large personal best marathon time of 2:25.15 in Perth in October 2021. This was not only a Commonwealth Games qualifier, but moved her up to equal fifth all-time Australian performances. With her selection for Commonwealth Games, she is sure to continue her international championships record which has included two Commonwealth Games medals and two top-12 World Championships results. A set-back in the final stages of her preparation saw the bronze medallist test positive to Covid, but is ready to test herself again as she makes her comeback to Australian representation. 

By Sascha Ryner, Athletics Australia 
Posted: 31/7/2022