Triple Threat | Kennedy Gold Leads Three Olympic Medals on Day 7 of Athletics

Pole vault sensation Nina Kennedy has led a historic day for Australian athletics at the Stade de France when soaring to the Olympic title just minutes after Matthew Denny clinched discus bronze, taking the tally to three medals in one day after Jemima Montag and Rhydian Cowley joined forces to walk to bronze on the roads.

Kennedy crowned pole vault champion, Denny snags discus bronze

Nina Kennedy (WA, Paul Burgess and James Fitzpatrick) has added the Olympic pole vault crown to her world title, and this is one title she doesn’t need to share.

The 27-year-old came from Perth to Paris, via meets around Europe, in great form and with a steely determination and belief that she could win Olympic gold. 

She jumped a season’s best of 4.90m to become the first Australian woman to win gold in a field event, handling the challenges of a drawn-out competition and equipment issues. Nina was focused and no competitor or event delay was going to derail her campaign. 

American defending champion Katie Moon, 33, who famously decided with Nina to share the 2023 world crown, jumped a season’s best 4.85m to win the silver while Canadian Alysha Newman jumped a national record of 4.85m for the bronze. 

“I have genuinely thought about this night every single day since those Budapest world championships, the night I finished Budapest, equal gold,” Nina said.

“You know, sharing with Katie will go down in history as one of my favourite competitions ever. But it really, really just ignited this self-belief in me.”

It was a marathon competition of over three hours, with 19 competitors, a big delay with an equipment failure on vault, plus the deafening 80,000 strong crowd. But Nina was ready for it all.

“I hate to say this, but I haven't come this far just to come this far, throw anything at me, and I will handle it. 

“And what I was kind of thinking is, I have gone this long handling setbacks, handling pressure, handling everything. Like, just bring it on at this point. I'll handle it.”

Nina also joins her idol Steve Hooker as an Australian Olympic gold medallist in this event. 

“You know, Steve is genuinely the reason why I got into the sport. 

“I was 11 at the time that he won that medal in Beijing. I watched that and very soon after that, that's when I started pole vault.

“So Steve is an icon and yeah, I'm happy to follow in his footsteps.”

In the highest quality final in Olympic history, it took two different athletes breaking the Olympic record to beat Matthew Denny (QLD, Dale Stevenson). 

Matt came to Paris ranked third in the world and at his third Games he was desperate for, and due, a podium. 

He finished fourth at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, missing bronze by just five centimetres and fourth again at the world championships in Budapest last year.

“To be honest, I didn't walk into the comps today going, ‘Please, dear God not another fourth’,” Matt said.

“I was walking in like, we are going to win this, and we're in the form to win it and we can, we can do this obviously didn't play out.

“But we gave it one of the best cracks you could ever see. 

“So we're very proud of that. I was just thinking let's just do something for the people that supported me and have been putting all this work into making me the athlete that I am.”

Matt’s second round throw of 69.31m that claimed bronze was just 4cm shy of his Australian record.

“It was crazy comp to be honest. I expected it to be the comp that it was,” Matt said. 

“It's amazing to step away from fourth, I'm very proud of that and my team and I have done an incredible job of just being persistent with that and having a great process. 

“But also the inner critic of me is always, there's still more to go and we're not done yet, obviously want to try and get to Brisbane 2032 and step forward into winning Los Angeles in 2028.”

Walkers secure inaugural Marathon Race Walk Mixed Relay medal

Montag (VIC, Brent Vallance) walked brilliantly again for Australia to team up with athletics co-captain Cowley (VIC, Brent Vallance) and claim bronze in the first Olympic Marathon Race Walk Mixed Relay ever contested. 

Each athlete walked two legs of similar distance, with all four legs equal to the marathon distance (42.195km) around the Trocadero course below the Eiffel Tower. Spain won the gold medal in 2:50.31, as Ecuador claimed silver in 51 seconds back and Australia were just 16 seconds further back.

“Jemima is a big inspiration for me. It's just amazing to be able to race with her and to earn a bronze medal with her,” Rhydian said.

For Jemima, the prospect of the walk double, was something she hadn’t considered until days before the race.

“My coach said, ‘I'm going to dangle a carrot for you. There's only been four track and field Olympians to get two medals at the same championships and you're in for a chance’,” she said.

This is Jemima’s second bronze medal for the Games after finishing third in the 20km Individual race six days ago, making her the first Australian woman in athletics to win two medals at the same Games since Raelene Boyle in 1972.

She becomes just the ninth Australian in track and field to win two medals at the same Games, joining legends of the sport: Betty Cuthbert, Shirley Strickland, Marjorie Jackson, Edwin Flack, Jared Tallent, Stan Rowley, Marlene Mathews and Raelene Boyle.

Declan Tingay (WA, Brent Vallance) and Rebecca Henderson (VIC, Simon Baker) also combined as the second Australian team and raced their hearts out to place 22nd.

Connor Murphy through to Triple Jump Final

Connor Murphy (NSW, Andrew Murphy)  leapt to a jump of 16.80m (+0.6) in the Qualification Round of the Triple Jump securing 10th place and advancing to the final.

Murphy becomes the first Australian to make the Olympic Final of the event since his dad, Andrew in 2000.

Little and Mitchell advance to javelin final

World Championship bronze medallist Mackenzie Little (NSW, Angus McEntyre) threw 62.82m on her second attempt to automatically progress to the final on Saturday. It was the fifth best throw across the two qualifying groups.

Australian record holder Kathryn Mitchell (VIC, Uwe Hohn) qualified with her second qualifying throw of 62.40m. The 42-year-old’s season best gets her through to her fourth consecutive Olympic final.

Two-time world champion and Tokyo bronze medallist Kelsey-Lee Barber (QLD, Mike Barber) threw a season best in Group B, but 57.73m wasn’t enough to progress. 

Craig runs superbly to progress to 800m semis, Bol and Deng to repechage

Peyton Craig (QLD, Brendan Mallyon),19, showed why he is considered a rising star of the sport. He was always in a top-three qualifying position in heat one and looked comfortable as he placed third in 1:45.81.

Australian record holder Joseph Deng (QLD, Samuel Sepeng) ran a season best of 1:45.87 to place sixth in what would be the fastest heat, while Peter Bol (WA, Justin Rinaldi) was fourth at the last Olympics in Tokyo. He seemed to conserve energy for the repechage once the automatic spots were gone. He was seventh in 1:47.50.

Mucci, Clay and Jenneke through to hurdles repechage, Jenneke okay after fall

Celeste Mucci (VIC, Darren Clark) was the first 100m hurdler to race for Australia. The 24-year-old on Olympic debut placed seventh in 13.05s and will race the repechage.

Michelle Jenneke (NSW, Bronwyn Thompson) in the next heat had a great start and was leading before she hit the third hurdle and fell. She managed to finish the race and will now refocus for the repechage round.

Liz Clay (QLD, David Reid and Sharon Hannan), who fell in the heats at last year’s world championships and badly injured herself, saw Michelle fall on the television in the call room before she raced. 

The 29-year-old was able to run a good race but finished fourth in 12.94s, one place from progressing to the semi-finals. She gets another chance in the repechage.

McDonald’s narrow miss and McSweyn gets added to 5000m final

In dramatic scenes across the two 5000m heats, Australia will have one finalist. In the opening heat Stewart McSweyn (TAS, Nic Bideau) finished up 12th in 14:12.31, and three seconds off the top eight, but a successful protest has him added to the final along with other athletes after a messy affair.

The second heat had drama early when a cameraman was on the track. Morgan McDonald (NSW, Dathan Ritzenhein) was well positioned and running well. In the final sprint to the line with a group of athletes he thought he had done enough for eighth but was ninth and missed qualifying by 0.05s with his time of 13:52.67.

Rounding out the action on the track, team co-captain Linden Hall (VIC, Ned Brophy-Williams) did everything she could to recover her injured calf and ignore it as much as possible, but fell short of qualifying for the 1500m Semi-Finals.

Starc, Reath and Baden miss high jump final

Brandon Starc (NSW, Alex Stewart) jumped a season best of 2.24m in the men’s high jump qualifying, yet agonisingly missed a place in the final on a countback. The two early misses at 2.15m and one miss at 2.20m and 2.24m left him placed 13th, with only 12 athletes to the final.

It was also a tough qualifying session for Olympic debutant Yual Reath (VIC, Paul Cleary) and Joel Baden (VIC, Sandro Bisseto). Yual cleared 2.20m and Joel 2.15m.

By Andrew Ried, Athletics Australia and Australian Olympic Committee
Posted 8/08/2024