Sprinters Impress as Hull Marches into Olympic Final

A new national record for Australia’s 4x100m men headlined the action on Day 8 at the Stade de France, as Jessica Hull punched her ticket to a second straight Olympic Final and Camryn Newton-Smith was strong at her Olympic debut on the opening day of the Heptathlon.

The quartet of Lachlan Kennedy (QLD, Andrew Iselin), Jacob Despard (TAS, Rolf Ohman), Calab Law (QLD, Andrew Iselin) and Josh Azzopardi (NSW, Rob Marks) ran superbly to clock 38.12s to set the national and Oceania record. 

However, the Aussies were in the much faster heat. They finished sixth and their time would have won heat two. They were 0.05s behind the defending champions from Italy who snatched the last non-automatic spot. 

“The record's been a long time coming, if I'm honest,” said Jacob, who ran the second leg.

“We've definitely had the potential and the speed for a number of years and a lot of people have said ‘You've got the raw speed, why haven't you broken it?’ 

“Today we went out there and showed Australia what we can do and what we're proud to do. An Australian record holder sounds pretty nice to me.”

The previous record was set at the 1995 World Championships in Gothenburg and then equaled in the London 2012 Olympic final. 

The Australian Women’s 4x100m team of Ella Connolly (NSW, Andrew Murphy), Bree Masters (QLD, Ryan Hoffman), Kristie Edwards (QLD, David Reid) and Torrie Lewis (QLD, Andrew Iselin) ran their second fastest time but it wasn’t enough to progress.

They were fourth in their heat in 42.75s and missed the automatic progression by one place. They were anxiously waiting to see the times from heat two, with the Netherlands securing the final lane in the final with 42.64s. 

“Obviously a little bit disappointed to miss the final, but it's our second best time we've run as a team, so I think we can hold our heads high knowing that we gave it everything,” Ella said.

“It's a really exciting time for Australian sprinting.”

Jessica Hull (NSW, Simon Hull) is through to her second 1500m Olympic final, and third major championship final over the distance. 

She qualified comfortably by sitting on world number two Ethiopian Diribe Welte to finish second in a fast semi-final.

Jess is the only Australian to ever run faster than her time tonight of 3:55.40, and it looked effortless. 

“It was fast but I kind of preferred it,” Jess said. “It's a bit simpler. 

“I can just focus on my racing cues and relax out there. I felt good, I'm comfortable with a fast semi now. Twelve months ago I couldn't go like that, and twelve months later, I'm a different athlete and I can handle that now and know that I've got more to come back with on Saturday.

“I was looking at the screen and I was just doing what I had to do to get through. I was a little surprised, to be fair. The other women definitely stepped up tonight.

World championship finalist Georgia Griffith (VIC, Nic Bideau), at her second Olympic Games, was run out in semi-final one. The pace wasn’t as quick and she ended up leading for the pack for quite sometime. The 27-year-old was in a qualifying position with 100 metres to go but really struggled over the last 50 metres. She finished ninth in 4:02.69

“I wanted to be towards the front and kind of stay out of trouble,” Georgia said.

“But I think it is a lot easier when you're not the one getting chased and you're just sitting in. 

But I mean it was a clean run and I did everything I could. I just didn't have the legs in the last 100. I was getting a bit wobbly that last 50 metres. I felt like I had a little jelly moment maybe 30, 40 metres to go, but we got there.”

Heptathletes Camryn Newton-Smith (QLD, Ralph Newton and Gavin Hunter) and Tori West (QLD, Eric Brown and Sam Leslie) are placed 14th and 21st respectively after the first four events at Stade de France. They started the day well but dropped away later in the day.

Camryn ran 13.46 seconds in the 100m hurdles, just outside her personal best of 13.43s for 1056 points. She then cleared 1.80 metres in the high jump. She was in eighth position with 2034 points after two events. She then threw 13.11m in the shot put before finishing with 24.76s for the 200m. She goes into day two with 3,678 points.

Tori ran a personal best of 13.62s (1033pts) in the 100 hurdles and then followed that with a 1.71 metre high jump clearance. The 28-year-old from Brisbane then threw 12.81m for the shot put and ran 24.73 seconds for the 200m. She has a 3,573 points with three events to go on Friday.

Tori and Camryn are the first Australians to compete in the heptathlon since Beijing 2008. 

The Australian 100m hurdles trio of Michelle Jenneke (NSW, Bronwyn Thompson), Celeste Mucci (VIC, Darren Clark) and Liz Clay (QLD, David Reid and Sharon Hannan) were unable to progress from the repechage races.

Michelle did so well to be on the start line following a fall in her heat which injured her hamstring. She was able to get out well before protecting herself from further injury to run 13.86s.

“We discovered yesterday afternoon that what actually happened is, as I was going over that third hurdle, I ruptured one of my hamstring tendons,” Michelle said.

“So I ran today with one less hamstring than usual and obviously that was pretty difficult.

“But I said to the doctor ‘Can I still run? I didn't want my Olympic campaign to end the way it was yesterday, and I really just wanted to give it my all today.”

Liz was fifth in her heat and the fastest of the Australians with a run of 12.99s. The slowest qualifier to the semi-finals was 12.91s.

Celeste was also fifth and her heat and was disappointed with her 13.00 seconds performance.  

Peter Bol (WA, Justin Rinaldi) and Joseph Deng (QLD, Samuel Sepeng) were aiming to improve on their heats runs in the 800m repechage, and progress to join fellow Aussie Peyton Craig in the semis. 

But neither runner was able to go with the moves in the final stages of their heats and didn’t progress. Pete was fourth in his heat in 1:46.12 and Joseph was fifth in his heat in 1:48.58.

“I'm actually quite happy and quite proud of myself for putting this Australian jersey on again. Three-time Olympian, so can't really complain,” Peter said.

“We're racing against the best in the world. So if you're playing in other sports and you're finishing top 48 in the world, you're pretty happy. I’m proud of my team. Proud of everyone that's competed here, including Joe and Peyton. We're going to be supporting Peyton throughout the semifinals tomorrow.”

By Andrew Ried, Athletics Australia and Australian Olympic Committee
Posted 9/08/2024