Tokyo 2020 Olympic Qualifier for Kurtis Marschall

The first event of the Coles Summer Super Series; the Jandakot Airport Track Classic has set the bar extremely high in competition, with West Australian Pole Vaulter Kurtis Marschall jumping 5.80m, which is a Tokyo 2020 Olympic qualifying height.

The 2018 Commonwealth Games gold medalist had to sit out the 2019 season due to a lower back injury, and in his first full run up competition managed to clear 5.80m and set himself up perfectly for Tokyo 2020 later this year.   

Speaking after the momentous event - Kurtis Marschall said:

“I couldn’t be happier, it has been such a rough 12 months and to do that tonight is just amazing,

“It was SUCH a long road back (from injury), I started off barely being able to do body weight squats after four weeks of complete sedentary and then gradually building back up to run at 30%, 40%, 50% over the weeks… It really was a long road but it pays off!” Marschall said

After missing the first two attempts at 5.80m, Kurtis knew that he had the strength to get over it:

“I definitely knew I could get over it, but I haven’t jumped that high in a very long time – so I had to really dig into my memory bank and remember how to jump that high and I knew I just had to go full send and do it”

Kurtis’ training partner – Angus Armstrong also broke ground today, clearing a new personal best height of 5.63m.

“For him to push me like that, as he cleared 5.63m before I did and I was like wow this is the most intense competition I’ve been in in Perth.

“To have boys up my backside like that and pushing me along, it  strives me to achieve my goals, it’s so good to have the comradery we have here,” Marschall added.

Despite achieving the Olympic qualifier, the events don’t stop there for Marschall:

“We are going to go home, recover and then come back out and compete – the Canberra Track Classic is the next comp and we will hit that hard and then we will hit every comp after that hard,” Marschall said.

The night wasn’t just full of pole vaulting glory, the men’s 100m was another standout event and shows that Australia has a really strong group of young sprinters.

Rohan Browning took home the win in 10.06, just .01 off the Olympic qualifying time, but with a wind reading of +2.2 it unfortunately doesn’t count as a new Personal Best (PB) time for Browning.  

Finishing in second place, Jack Hale of Tasmania set himself another new PB (after setting one last week at the ACT Championships) with a run of 10.12 in the 100m heats and then 10.10 (+2.2) in the VenuesWest 100m final.

Talking about the win, Rohan Browning said:

“The (Fremantle) Doctor is one of the reasons we come over to Perth from the east coast to compete, it can be hard at the best of times to get us precious athletes on a plane but Perth is the probably the best city in the country to run at.

“It was my first competition since the World Championships, and today it was all about redemption. I was really disappointed with my Doha World Championships experience, I was a bit underdone, I wasn’t in my best shape and my coach always says ‘you’re only as good as your last race’ so today was all about redemption for me.

Other standout winning performances came from Nick Hough in the men’s hurdles, who won with 13.85 (+1.5), Riley Day in the women’s 200m winning with 23.31, Jeremy Andrews in the men’s long jump winning with 7.93m (windy + 2.9) and Brooke Stratton in the women’s long jump with 6.48m (+1.5).

For a full wrap of the results from the 2020 Jandakot Airport Track Classic – go here: https://bit.ly/2uPRJIf

With night one of the Coles Summer Super Series providing such highlights, you can only assume that the rest of the series is going to be just as good. The next event in the series is the Melbourne Track Classic on Thursday February 6, which is hosting the Australian 5000m Championships.