Marschall on Medal Hunt as Marathoners Begin Chase

World rank number five Kurtis Marschall is out to join the pole vault party on Day Eight of the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary inspired by the world title of training partner Nina Kennedy, while Lisa Weightman leads a classy trio of marathoners and the Decathlon rolls on.

Already enjoying a career-best year when piling on the centimetres to his personal best which now stands at 5.95m, Marschall’s (WA, Paul Burgess) hopes have only been bolstered by sharing in the confidence of Nina Kennedy’s historic global gold – the 26-year-old cruising through qualifying earlier this week.

“Four from four, clean card, basically like the perfect game plan executed. It wasn’t as easy, but there’s no pictures on the scorecard. I scraped over a couple but made it work, jumped 5.75m clean, couldn’t be happier,” Marschall said.

“It was bloody hot. It was a slight little headwind which was a little bit challenging at times, but Saturday night the final will be on the back straight which will be mint.”

The Western Australian’s season’s best of 5.95m ranks him third in the field, forcing his name into contention for a maiden global medal, but Marschall is jumping free of pressure behind Swedish world record holder Armand Duplantis.

With the added incentive of becoming the fourth Australian man to clear six-metres, Marschall is ready to leave it all on the runway in tonight’s final:

“It’s basically all gas no breaks, take the shackles off and see what we can do. I jumped 5.95m a couple of weeks ago, hopefully we can get close to that again, if not a little higher. Obviously 5cm higher than that would be a dream. I’ve never been in a better spot in my life, so yeah, feeling pretty confident going into this one,” Marschall said.

“My runup went back a fair bit today, further than usual, which usually means I am moving pretty quick. Every track has a little bit of a camber for water runoff, so it is slightly uphill at the start, and downhill at the end. If you can capitalise on that and use your speed going into the box, it's money.”

Australia’s third fastest female marathoner in history Lisa Weightman (VIC, Dick Telford) is set to make her World Championships return 14-years after her debut at the 2009 Berlin edition, taking on the Women’s Marathon alongside Isobel Batt-Doyle (SA, Nic Bideau) and Sarah Klein (VIC, Peter Schuwalow).

Weightman boasts a wealth of experience in a range of conditions which will hold the four-time Olympian in good stead on the roads of Budapest, with the Hungarian capital offering challenging conditions for the race walking events earlier this week and a scorching forecast for the 42.2km battle. 

Setting her personal best at 44-years-old earlier this year in Osaka, Japan, the 2:23:15 marathoner is evergreen and eager to confirm that by bettering her best World Championships finish of 18th place today.  

Klein will line up for her third World Championships after pacing herself to perfection in the heat of 2022’s Oregon installment, where she sifted through the field to claim 14th place finish, while Batt-Doyle has raced with calculated maturity in her two career marathons to date.

The nation’s hopes in the Men’s Decathlon will come down to Commonwealth Games silver medallist Daniel Golubovic (QLD, Paul Pearce), after Olympic bronze medallist Ashley Moloney (QLD, Steve Rippon) and Cedric Dubler (QLD, Chris Gaviglio) were unable to complete day one due to injury.

Sitting on 15th place on 4032 points after five events and the halfway mark, Golubovic will be out to climb the rankings on day two of competition, with his favoured events of the pole vault and 110m hurdles looming as his best opportunities to build on his second World Championships campaign.  

Australian viewers can tune in to the 2023 World Athletics Championships via SBS or beIN Sport, with each session broadcast live and free. 

By Lachlan Moorhouse, Athletics Australia
Posted: 26/8/2023