Swifties ready for showtime at Maurie Plant Meet – Melbourne

Just two sleeps remain until Australia’s biggest one-day athletics meeting erupts at Lakeside Stadium, as the highly anticipated Maurie Plant Meet – Melbourne sets the scene for homegrown heroes led by Torrie Lewis and a star-studded cast of international challengers featuring 2022 world champion Jake Wightman and athletics prodigy Sasha Zhoya.

Australia’s fastest woman will be one of the hottest tickets in town on February 15, with 19-year-old Lewis (Andrew Iselin) set for a swift showdown against New Zealand’s Zoe Hobbs in the Women’s 100m.

No stranger to setting the Chemist Warehouse Summer Series alight, Hobbs bolted to a 10.97-second performance at the 2023 Sydney Track Classic, but Lewis is welcoming the challenge after breaking the Australian record at 11.10 in Canberra last month.

“Looking at Zoe’s progression from 11.1 to sub-11 now, she made us realise that it is possible and it gives us a lot of confidence to run with her after seeing what she’s done. Her starts are amazing so it’s someone for me to chase and she can drag me through to a fast time,” Lewis said.

“At the end of the day, it’s a competition and I want to win, that’s the main goal of the competition. When you are thinking about the clock, it’s hundredths of seconds and that’s not going to get you anywhere – winning is a more visible target.”  

Great Britain’s Jake Wightman (GBR) took the world by storm when racing to 1500m gold at the 2022 World Championships, now choosing to open his Olympic campaign down under when joining the likes of Stewart McSweyn (Nic Bideau) and teenage sensations Cameron Myers (Dick Telford) and Peyton Craig (Brendan Mallyon) to form a world-class lineup in the John Landy Mile.

“I’m a racer rather than a time trialist, for me that’s the biggest buzz – winning races. I enjoy the tactical element and that’s why it was a shame to miss the World Championships last year, but there is such a good level of competition here and it allows you to run outdoors instead of indoors,” Wightman said.

“Coming to Australia is one of those things where people don’t consider it and then once they come, they want to keep coming. If we can be like birds and migrate with the sun; I’m very glad I came and I already had high hopes.”

Olympic silver medallist Nicola Olyslagers (Matt Horsnell) is set to be at her encapsulating best in the Women’s High Jump having already cleared an equal Australian record of 2.03m in January, now preparing to raise the bar in the field at the World Athletics Continental Tour Gold Level meet. Similarly, reigning Diamond League champion Matthew Denny (Dale Stevenson) will be looking to up the ante in the Men’s Discus.

Denny remains determined to bounce back after last week’s Chemist Warehouse Adelaide Invitational saw him defeated by Kiwi thrower Connor Bell, while the throws action is only set to roll on with back-to-back world champion Kelsey-Lee Barber (Mike Barber) and Australian record holder Kathryn Mitchell (Uwe Hohn) in the Women’s Javelin.

The international flare will flow from hurdle sensations Sasha Zhoya (FRA) and Queen Harrison Claye (USA), with Zhoya returning to his roots to take on reigning national champion Mitchell Lightfoot (Alex Stewart), while Claye meets her match in the Olympic duo of Liz Clay (David Reid & Sharon Hannan) and Michelle Jenneke (Bronwyn Thompson).

Australia’s fastest man Rohan Browning (Andrew Murphy) presents as fit and firing to continue his dominance on Australian soil, eyeing a sprint double headlined by the Peter Norman Memorial 200m to open his Paris 2024 campaign on the national stage.

The 10.01-second man will kick-start the fan frenzy when starting the night in the Men’s 100m before turning his attention to the prestigious 200m race won by Fred Kerley (USA) last year; this year meeting the Japanese duo of Asian champion Towa Uzuwa and Yudai Nishi.  

Rounding out the headline acts on the blockbuster program, Australia’s middle-distance stars will continue their resurgent era, with a Women’s 800m clash featuring Commonwealth bronze medallist Abbey Caldwell (Gavin Burren), Australian record holder Catriona Bisset (Ned Brophy-Williams) and rising star and new Under 20 Australian record holder Claudia Hollingsworth (Craig Mottram).

A pair of slick 5000m races will see athletes eye Olympic qualification, with the women’s race headed by the Olympic trio of Genevieve Gregson (Nic Bideau), Rose Davies (Scott Westcott) and Isobel Batt-Doyle (Nic Bideau), while Jack Rayner (Nic Bideau) and Matthew Ramsden (Nic Bideau) will go toe-to-toe for the men.

Also featuring in the pre-event meet from 6pm AEDT will be Paralympic champion Vanessa Low (Scott Reardon) who takes to the long jump runway just weeks after setting a new 5.33m world record in the T61 classification.  Australia’s fastest-ever para athlete Chad Perris (Matt Beckehnham, T13) will go head-to-head with reigning world and Paralympic gold medallist James Turner (Iryna Dvoskina, T36) in the multi-class 100m ambulant event, as some of the country’s best para athletes showcase their talent ahead of the Paralympic Games.

The Maurie Plant Meet is part of the Chemist Warehouse Summer Series and supported by the Victorian Government via Visit Victoria.

The action starts from 6pm AEDT on Thursday. Tickets are only available online via Ticketek, and can be purchased HERE. Full entry lists can be found HERE.

By Lachlan Moorhouse, Athletics Australia
Posted: 13/2/2024