Sally returns for Queensland championships

Following a successful indoor racing stint in Europe, Sally Pearson (Qld) has returned to Australia to contest her state championships and make her season debut in her favoured event.

The 30-year-old ran a total of eight indoor 60m hurdles races in Europe to kick-start her season after returning from a hamstring injury that prevented her from defending her 100m hurdles Olympic title in Rio last year.

Five of those runs in Germany, Ireland and England were within 0.05 sec of each other with her fastest time of the trip clocked at 7.91 sec she amazingly achieved three times.

Pearson has entered both the 100m hurdles and 100m events at the Queensland Athletics Championships that will be hosted at the QSAC Stadium in Brisbane.

In the 100m Pearson will come up against in-form Toea Wisil from Papua New Guinea who has already run a windy 11.26 sec earlier this year in Brisbane and also ran well in Canberra last weekend.

Amy Foster from Ireland is another quality international in the 100m field with a personal best of 11.40 secs. The four-time Irish national champion will also contest the 200m event.

The sprint events in Brisbane will also feature Olympic 4x400m relay finalist Caitlin Jones (Qld), who competed for Australia at the Rio Games.

The 24-year-old has a personal best of 52.16 and will undoubtedly be trying to qualify for her first individual berth at a global championship later this season.

Teenage sprinter Trae Williams is likely to make sure the men’s 100m state title race is also a quick affair after running an equal personal best of 10.27 sec in the heats at the ACT Athletics Championships.

One-lap specialist Alex Beck is also coming off a good run at Canberra last weekend running 46.26 sec, well less than half a second away from the 2013 national champion’s personal best.

Matthew Denny is in line for his second consecutive state discus title and will be looking to build on a successful 2016 that saw the 20-year-old throw a personal nest of 65.37 metres.

The reigning national champion will face off with Julian Wruck for the discus title, who threw over 60 metres in a competition in Brisbane late last year.

Wruck, the two-time national champion who also won two NCAA Division One titles in college, is also entered in the hammer throw.

Western Australia championships preview

The 2017 WA State Championships will be bookended by two of the championship’s highly-anticipated events in the open women and men’s pole vault.

Nitro Athletics stars Liz Parnov and Nina Kennedy will go head-to-head in the women’s competition with both athletes entering with the same season’s best of 4.25m, but will be sure to be pushing each other towards the 2017 IAAF World Championship qualifier of 4.55m.

In the Men’s event WAIS athletes Declan Carruthers and Stephen Clough will face off against Rio Olympian Kurtis Marschall, who recently jumped a world championships qualifier.

Rio Olympian Peter Bol returns to the WA Athletics Stadium for a hit-out in the men’s 400m and 800m, with Nitro Athletics star Matthew Ramsden also set to compete in the 800m and 1500m.

Rio Paralympian Ella Pardy will lead a stacked para athletics program at the WA State Championship.

Victorian championships preview

Olympic 400m semi-finalist Morgan Mitchell will headline the 2017 Victorian track and field championships at Lakeside Stadium that starts this weekend.

Fellow Rio Olympian and Nitro Athletics teammate Linden Hall will be the favourite in the 1,500m, while equal 800m national record holder Alex Rowe will also feature at the championships.

Ash Whittaker will be a leading contender for the state 100m crown, while four Paralympians in Nicholas Hum, Isis Holt, Richard Colman and Jaryd Clifford will feature in the para events.