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ISSUE 11 JAN 10 www.insideathletics.com.au
ATHLETES OF THE DECADE BEKELE AND ISINBAYEVA
ON YOUR MARKS
THE NEW FALSE START RULE
ELOISE WELLINGS
TWO HOUR MARATHON
CAN IT BE DONE?
BACK ON TRACK!
PLUS:
Mattyb dept of athletic coaching
THE LATEST ATHLETICS NEWS EVENT CALENDAR
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ISSUE 11 jan 10
inside this issue
4 AROUND THE TRACKS 7 ATHLETES OF THE DECADE 12 BACK ON TRACK 14 hooked on success 16 SQUAD OF THE MONTH 20 THE 2 HOUR MARATHON 22 ON YOUR MARKS, SET...
PLAY 4
26 CALENDAR
27 THE LAST LAP
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12 www.insideathletics.com.au
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AROUND THE TRACKS HOW MANY TIMES CAN HOOKER TOUCH HIS HEAD WHILE WALKING ON HIS HANDS?
PLAY 4 DIAMOND LEAGUE TO DELIVER EXCITING CLASHES
The IAAF are pinning its hopes on its new Diamond League to lift the profile of the sport globally. Set to kick off in Doha, Qatar on 14 May, the fourteen meet series will operate on three continents: Asia, Europe and North America. Each discipline will be offered for each gender on seven occasions throughout the series, with athletes accumulating points in ‘The Diamond Race’ for each discipline, with the winner awarded a 4 carat diamond trophy. The IAAF have done away with its inconsequential World Athletics Final, instead making the Weltklasse meet in Zurich and Memorial Van Damme meet in Brussels the series finals, with performances scoring double points. Additionally, the highest profile stars of the sport have been centrally contracted by the IAAF to participate, ensuring that more head to head clashes will occur: Usain Bolt will take on Tyson Gay on at least three occasions.
athletics thletics 05 AUSTRALIAN ATHLETICS TOUR Athletics Australia has rebranded the major meets of the domestic season as the Australian Athletics Tour. Aside from the mainstays of the season, the Sydney Track Classic, IAAF Melbourne Grand Prix and the national championships (to be held on Perth’s new track), the Tour also contains the Briggs Classic in Hobart, the new Brisbane Track Classic and has resurrected the Canberra Track Classic, which disappeared from the program last season and will this year incorporate the Australia Cup. RECORD NUMBERS AT FALLS CREEK Australia’s distance fraternity congregated en masse at Falls Creek just after Christmas for some hard training before the start of the track season proper. Up to 120 athletes took part in the same staple sessions that form the bread and butter for most distance runners around the country: 8x400m with 200m float, 1km reps and Mona fartlek. A number of those in attendance will race shortly coming down from the moderate altitude of the winter ski resort, tackling the world cross country trial in Melbourne on 17 January.
GROUP TRAINING IS ONE OF THE MAIN BENEFITS OF GOING TO FALLS CREEK
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Athletes of the Decade We know that technically the decade doesn’t end until the end of 2010, but the opportunity to review the period from 2000-2009, including the Olympic Games of Sydney, Athens and Beijing, is an opportunity that is too good to miss. It’s not an easy task. What weight do you give to the sensational performances of Usain Bolt, which have reenergised the sport, but which cover only a two year span? How do they compare the dominance and ambundantcy of wins of Kenenisa Bekele with the records of Yelena Isinbayeva or the majesty of Hicham El Guerrouj repeating the feats of Paavo Nurmi in winning the 1500m/5000m at the same Olympics. Any type of cross gender and discipline comparision is necessarily subjective.
All pictures courtesy of Getty Images
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Kenenisa Bekele Kenenisa Bekele has exhibited a dominance over distance running that is nearly unprecdented. Taking over the reigns from compatriot Haile Gebrselassie as the leading distance runner in the world, Bekele has outshone him on the track, becoming the first man since 1980 to win the 5000m/10000m double at the Olympic Games and the first man ever to do so at the world championships. Added to that, Bekele is the finest cross country runner in history, surpassing Paul Tergat and John Ngugi with his six wins at the world cross country as well as winning the now defunct short course race on five occasions.
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The magnitude of Bekele’s greatness is exhibted by those who he prevents from featuring on this page, most notably Usain Bolt and Hicham El Guerrouj. It is not only the achievements of Bolt which are impressive – world records during the Olympic and world championship wins – but the manner in which he achieved them. His 100m victory in Beijing, where he was so assured of victory that he could celebrate with 15 metres remaining and still break the world record was extraordinary, and probably the performance of the decade. Yet despite duplicating that success in the 200m and over both events the following year, it is hard to compare such a short burst of brilliance with the sustained glory of Bekele. Likewise, El Guerrouj overcame the disappointment of failing to win gold in Sydney when he was the overwhelming favourite, to capture the event in Athens and then defeat Bekele in the 5000m. Yet, the Moroccan’s fastest times, save for his foray into the 5000m at the end of his career, came in the 90s.
World records: 5000m 12:37.35 (2004) 10000m 26:17.53 (2005) 26:20.31 (2004) Indoor 5000m
12:49.60 (2004)
Championship record: Olympics: Gold: 5000m (‘04) 10000m (‘04 and ‘08) Silver: 5000m (‘04) World championships: Gold: 5000m (‘09) 10000m (‘03, ‘05, ‘07, ‘09) Bronze: 5000m (‘03) World cross country: Gold: Short course (‘02, ‘03, ‘04, ‘05, ‘06) Long course (‘02, ‘03, ‘04, ‘05, ‘06, ‘08) Silver: Short course (‘01) World indoor: Gold: 3000m (‘06)
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Yelena Isinbayeva After the early achievements of pioneers such as Emma George and Stacy Dragila, Yelena Isinbayeva is the first real star of the women’s pole vault now that it has matured as an event. The highly marketable Russian started the decade winning the world junior championships in Chile and ended it as the world record holder and first woman over the five metre barrier. In fact, such as her dominance has become that it was almost as much of a shock when she failed to clear a height in the final of this year’s world championships as it was when Sergey Bubka failed to do so at the 1992 Olympic Games. Displaying tenacity, she bounced back 11 days later to break her own world record at the Weltklasse meet.
Whilst not challenging the dominance of Isinbayeva, it would be remiss not to mention the exploits of Tirunesh Dibaba and Veronica Campbell-Brown. Dibaba became the first woman to capture the 5000m/10000m double at the Olympic Games when winning in Beijing, having broken the 5000m world record earlier in the year; Campbell-Brown was one of only two woman during the decade other than Isinbayeva to defend an Olympic title (in the 200m), running the fastest time of the decade (21.74 seconds) in beating Allyson Felix in Beijing.
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World records: 17 outdoors, from 4.82m in 2003 to 5.06m in 2009. 12 indoors, from 4.81m in 2004 to 5.00m in 2009. Championship record: Olympics: Gold: Pole vault (‘04 and ‘08) World championships: Gold: Pole vault (‘05, ‘07) Bronze: Pole vault (‘03) World indoor championships: Gold: Pole vault (‘04, ‘06, ‘08) Silver: Pole vault (‘03) Getty Images
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Back on Track! Ten years ago Eloise Wellings, then 17-yearsold and known by her maiden name Poppett, was on the verge of qualifying for the 2000 Olympics in her home town of Sydney. With a 15:18.60 run over 5000m during a mixed gender interclub race she was under the qualifying standard, showing that she had the potential to clock the time in a female only race and challenge for a spot on the team. But, as would be a recurring theme
over the pursuing decade, she broke down with injury. With a new approach to training and added inspiration Wellings is now quickly approaching her best form of 2006, which saw her run 14:54.11 over 5000m and 8:41.78 for 3000m; recently she won the national 10000m title at the Zatopek:10 meet in a Commonwealth Games B-qualifier of 32:19.08 in only her second track race over the distance. “I’ve had Julius Achon, my Ugandian friend, training with me the last two weeks and he’s just helped me to believe in myself,” said Wellings. “He’s got an incredible story; he cares for 11 orphans over in Uganda. “He’s been to three Olympics himself. It’s been a good couple of weeks to draw on
the knowledge and inspiration from him.” Achon’s story is amazing. Abducted by rebels at the age of 10 and brutally forced to train as a child soldier, he eventually escaped with fourteen others. While on the run, the group was mistakenly shot at by a government plane, with nine of the children dying. When he returned to school he discovered his talent for running middle distance, which eventually earned him a scholarship to George Mason University in the United States. Two NCAA titles and three Olympic teams and swift personal bests of 1:44.55 (800m) and 3:35.68 (1500m) followed. “My husband and I went over to visit them in January and went to his wedding over there and we invited him to come here. Hopefully
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Image courtesy of Randy Miyazaki
JULUIS ACHON (228) PACING THE 3000M AT THE 2009 PREFONTAINE CLASSIC
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younger brother has been putting me through some really tough gym sessions and I just feel that I am a lot stronger and have a more muscular physique. Most of my injuries have been stress fractures so I’ve cut down on my doing mileage and have been real quality work. “I’ve started to believe that you don’t need to me a high mileage distance runner to be good.” With the 10000m now added to her repertoire Wellings will likely face a choice between it and her preferred event, the 5000m, in October’s Commonwealth Games. “10km would be brutal in Delhi. I guess I’ll have to sit down with my coach and my support team and figure out where my best medal chance is. “I’m not going for anything else. I’m not going for the tracksuit, I want a medal. I got fourth last time in Melbourne in the 5km and I definitely want something around my WELLINGS RAN A SMART RACE AT ZATOPEK, TUCKING neck this time.” INTO THE LEAD PACK UNTIL IT WAS TIME TO STRIKE
he will be able to stick around and help me train a little bit.” With four stress fractures over the past two years, Wellings is satisfied that a new approach to training will see her continue to return to her best form. “I feel a lot stronger. My
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JUMPING AHEAD
AUSSIE CHAMPS
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OUR LONG JUMP STARS
MELISSA BREEN TOP FAST TRACK TO THE
WHAT’S OUR BEST 10K ROAD RACE?
THE BOY FROM BALLARAT COLLIS BIRMINGHAM
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OUR HARDEST WORKING MILER
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ICARUS, PHOENIX OR BUMBLEBEE
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JANA’S FUTURE FLIGHT PATH
USAIN BOLT:
CAN HE SAVE OUR SPORT?
RISE OF THE RANGAS!
IN A SPIN:
DANI SAMUELS TAKES THE WORLD BY STORM!
SERG EY BUBKA A DOMINANT FORCE IN ATHLETICS
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HOOKED ON SUCCESS: STEVE DEFIES THE ODDS
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SQUAD OF THE MONTH
MattB Dept of Athletic Coaching
Back in the days of yore, the athletics club was the fundamental organising unit for adults in the sport. Those days are long gone. In a world that continues to evolve at an increasing rate, athletics clubs have not evolved at all. At the same time, the influence of the training squad as a core organisational unit has continued to grow, so much so that many are becoming commercial properties in their own right. Each edition we’ll profile
MELISSA BREEN Age: 19 PBs: 100m 11.33 200m 23.51
Image courtesy of Matt Beckenham
L TO R: MELISSA BREEN, MATT BECKENHAM, BRENDAN COLE AND LAUREN BODEN IN JAPAN
one of these squads, starting with the MattyB Department of Athletic Coaching. In a nutshell, the
reason for the squad’s success is the unique blend of highly motivated and talented athletes and a relatively young, yet highly qualified and innovative coach who drives a team mentality throughout all of the squad’s activities. All of the squad’s high performance B Elite group (Brendan Cole, Lauren Boden, Melissa Breen and Brandan Galic) have represented Australia in either senior or junior competition, which is a powerful source of
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LAUREN BODEN Age: 21 PBs: 400m hurdles 56.11 400m 53.87 Long Jump 6.40m motivation for not only those athletes, but for their training partners. The Development Squad contains talent of the ilk of 15 year old Chloe Jamieson, who starred at the recent Australian all schools championships, breaking the Australian U16 200m hurdles record into a strong headwind and breaking 60 seconds for the 400m hurdles, whilst the Pro Running squad has a combined purse of over $14,000 dollars so far this season. Success in one area motivates others to achieve the same within their own sphere of participation. Of course, in many
ways a squad will only be as good as the quality and direction which their coach provides, and it is on this count that it stands heads and shoulders above most others. At only 33 years of age – very young for a coach who has already guided a
Image by Andrew Sikorski
number of athletes into senior national teams – Matt Beckenham is a wealth of knowledge on all things sprints and hurdles. With a Masters in Applied Coaching and Level 5 IAAF Academy Diploma in sprints and hurdles, along with his own experience as an Olympic 400m hurdler, it is not hard to see why his athletes have had consistent improvement over the past few years. Then there is the overall team aspect. Members of the various squads regularly, especially in the pre Christmas period, travel interstate to various meets together, ranging from the NSW relay championships, to various Gifts.
BRANDAN GALIC Age: 22 PBs: 100m 10.43
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CHLOE JAMIESON Age: 15 PBs: 400m hurdles 59.66 200m hurdles 27.25 (Aust U16 rec) 90m hurdles 12.73 “Coaching for me is a passion that gets me out of bed every morning,” said Beckenham. “The joy of working with committed and focused athletes as they strive to reach their goals far outweighs the rewards I got as an athlete. “I believe it is important that everyone in the squad generally has an interest and desire to see everyone
within the squad succeed as this helps maintain a positive environment which is also critical component to prosper success. “I also believe it is important to develop the whole person not just the athlete. Whilst motivation must come from within the athlete it is vital for the coach to nurture the overall development of the athlete. It is a balance of being firm but also understanding things from an athlete perspective that I believe creates respect but also ensures honesty and trust.”
BRENDAN COLE Age: 28 PBs: 400m hurdles 49.35 400m 47.50 200m 20.94
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The 2 Hour Marathon I’m sitting in the lobby of the Parkview Hotel in Melbourne on the eve of the Great Australian Run. Next to me are two other journalists. Opposite us, the Olympic marathon champion, Samuel Wanjiru. The first thing that strikes you about the 1.63m Kenyan is his quiet demeanour. It is a cross between the usual African modesty and the polite reverence of the Japanese, where Wanjiru spent four years from the age of 16 on a high school scholarship. “It is a good experience
for Kenyas to go to Japan because when you come from Kenya you don’t know anything but in Japan you learn many things: how to run, about technology,” said Wanjiru. “It was a good experience for my life.” Despite Wanjiru’s quiet nature and slighly downwards glance, when he looks up and you look into the whites of his eyes he has the trademark confidence and determination in his gaze of a champion athlete. And when conversation moves to his future
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aspirations, his eyes glisten in anticipation. “I got the gold medal last year [in Beijing]. Now in the future I think about breaking the world record for the marathon. After that one, maybe I can try again for the half marathon,” he says as if such achievements are merely items to be ticked off a list. The obvious question is then asked: can he break two hours for the marathon? “Many people ask me about that one because that is my aim,” he says. “But first, to run 2:02 - I think it is possible if I get a good pacemaker and a good course.” Later, when discussing the necessary conditions (a pacemaker through to 35km) he qualifies his ambition. “First I would like to break the world record. After that I will think about 2:02. But my aim is to break the record, even if by one second.”
athletics thletics 21 Athens Olympic marathon champion Stefano Baldini is less confident that the two hour barri er is on the cusp of being broken. “It will be difficult for him,” he said when asked of Wanjiru’s chances. “Now, the world record is achieveable by Wanjiru but two hours is four minutes more – a big gap. “25 years ago the world record was 2:06:50 by the Ethiopian Belayneh Dinsamo. Three minutes in 25 years... maybe we need 25 more years. “But he is the present and the future. He is the only man now able to beat Haile Gebrselassie’s world record.”
WANJIRU’S WIN IN BEIJING IS CONSIDERED ONE OF THE BEST MARATHON PERFORMANCES IN HISTORY Getty Images
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On Your Marks, Set... A Look at the iaaf’s new ‘No false start’ rule
From 1 January, 2010 athletes will face a brave new world where false starts will not be tolerated; any athlete judged responsible for a false start, regardless of the distance save for if it is a multievent, will be disqualified. The decision of the IAAF to adopt the rule has all of the makings of a bad decision. Firstly, it replaces a previous bad decision, that is, the rule which was in place from 2003 which allowed for one false start for the field, with a second infraction resulting in disqualification. That the IAAF were willing to adopt a rule which is so manifestly unjust, spreading the consequence of an illegal act by one in the field upon all (in effect, not
penalising the initial offender), must draw into question their competence. But for the really poor pun, one could say the IAAF made a false start in changing its false start rule. However, if one were to say it, it is hard to escape the irony that, unlike athletes will now, the IAAF get a second chance to remedy their
error. The fact that the IAAF either didn’t contemplate, or gave scant regard to, the foreseeable problems that such a rule could pose, most obviously gamesmanship where an athlete might cause a break to put pressure on the whole field – the main reason given for the abandonment of
athletics thletics 23 the rule - gives rise to the inevitable question of what hasn’t been contemplated this time around? Before delving into two of the main issues which could rear their head with the new rule, the ability of starters and the availability and reliability of the technology on which they rely, it is worth noting that the decision to change the rule was far from a consensus, with less than two-third support. In fact, the vote amongst the IAAF Congress was a mere 97 to 55, with 6 abstentions. Notably, the United States, whose collegiate system (where the no false start rule has been in place for some time) was put up as the poster child for adopting the rule, voted against it. If the new false start rule is to have its intended effect, which aside from rectifying the injustice of the previous rule is presumably is to prevent delay at the start and make the sport a more precisely timetabable
entertainment property for TV, an incredible amount of pressure, even more than currently exists, will rest with the starters. Being indecisive and not attributing borderline false starts that would currently be called does nothing to prevent delay; letting a race run in such circumstances would be patently unjust. Hard decisions will need to be made and inevitably some will be wrong.
No doubt there are some very good starters around the world. But evidently not enough to go around for all local circumstances, with the IAAF establishing an international starters panel in 2005 years ago which oversee the major meets in the world because of the need to improve the quality and consistency of the starters’ performances during major IAAF competitions. Part of the problem with such an
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approach is indicative of the IAAF rules generally, in that the rules are written for the highest level of the sport and don’t necessarily translate well to lower levels. Already Athletics Australia has derogated from the rule for under 16 events, instead using the previous rule, as has Athletics Victoria for all age groups in their shield competition,
which is aimed at recreational athletes. Hardly a ringing endorsement of the ‘no false start’ rule. Even at the highest level of the sport, where the potential for human error is decreased by the availability of better technology such as the false start apparatus which is attached to starting blocks, the new rules do nothing
to add more fairness to the start. For those unaware, in broad terms the apparatus measure movement in the blocks and if such movement is measured within the time of 0.100 seconds the starter receives a signal in their earpiece, recalls the start and awards a false start – or now, disqualifies – the offending athlete. Interestingly, until 1990 the reaction time was 0.12 seconds, until a lower figure was determined through research. The problem? Researchers at the University of Loughborough, have published research which shows that it is possible for athletes to react within the (current) illegal time. If the IAAF wish false start regulations to remain above the minimum neuromuscularphysiological component of reaction time due to added time for the sound to travel to the athletes, or the system to measure a
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suitably high rise in the parameter it is detecting, then that is the IAAF’s prerogative. However, these results demonstrate that the neuromuscularphysiological component of simple auditory reaction times can be under 100 ms... Matthew Palin and Angela Hibbs in their article Sprint starts and the minimum auditory reaction time in the Journal of Sports Sciences: “Whilst such occurances may be rare, the new rule offers no flexibility for the outliers. In fact, it punishes them in the harshest way. Under the last stable false start rule, the one where an athlete is disqualified
for their second false start, the athlete would need to produce an extradordinary start twice in succession, or at least with intervening false starts from others in between, to be disqualified.” Under the new rules some past results may have been different, most notably the 1996 Olympic men’s 100m final, in which Linford Christie would have been disqualified earlier than what eventuated, but so would have bronze medalist Ato
Bolden. Is the sport served by a made for TV rule which sees only three quarters of the field contest the pinnacle of sport, the Olympic 100m final? More recently, Tyson Gay would have been the 2009 world champion and later in the season would have equalled the world record of 9.69 seconds, as Usain Bolt’s break in the semi-final in Berlin would have meant he would never have run 9.58 seconds to win the final.
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CALENDAR JANUARY 9
BUPA Great Edinburgh International X Country Edinburgh, GBR
9-10 NSW Combined Events Championships
Blacktown, NSW
10 Cadbury Marathon Hobart, TAS 16-17 NSW Country Championships
Wollongong, NSW
17
Zayed International Half Marathon Abu Dhabi, UAE
17
World Cross Country Selection Trial Melbourne, VIC
22 Dubai Marathon Dubai, UAE 23 NSW Club Championships SOPAC, NSW 23
Belfast International Cross Country
Belfast, GBR
23-24
Victorian Country Championships Moe, VIC
23-24
Queensland Combined Event Championships
Brisbane, QLD
27 Adelaide Invitational #3 Adelaide, SA 28
Waratah Invitational and NSW 5000m Champs SOPAC, NSW
29 Millrose Games New York, USA 30 Canberra Grand Prix (including Australia Cup) Canberra, ACT 30 Allcomers SOPAC, NSW 31 Cinque Mulini San Vittore Olana, ITA 31 Osaka Ladies Marathon Osaka, JPN
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thletics 27 athletics
The last lap!
With TIM MCGRATH
A decade in australian athletics The 2000-09 period was a mixed bag for Australian athletics, with the medal winning success of athletes on a world stage being punctuated by periods of controversy. On the track, in the field or over cross country or walks, Cathy Freeman, Dmitri Markov, Jana Pittman-Rawlinson, Benita Johnson (Willis), Nathan Deakes, Tamsyn Lewis, Steve Hooker and Dani Samuels claimed Olympic or world titles, whilst another eight individuals and three relay teams won minor medals. However, off the track the sport suffered a series of setbacks, ranging from a PR disaster in christening the national team ‘The Diggers’; the controversial tenure of Said Aouita as national distance coach; an Australian Sports Commission review of the sport following
consternation amongst athletes, coaches and administrators over the management of Athletics Australia following a $1.3 million dollar loss one financial year; infighting amongst athletes; and a debacle over whether, and then which, athletes could march in the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. The Sydney Olympics and Melbourne Commonwealth Games delivered the largest spectator crowds ever seen for athletics in the country, but the decade closed with the smallest cumulative total crowds (approximately 21,000) in 2009 in what is left of the once strong domestic series. Who will be the athletes that step up over the next decade and carry the sport’s future? Success at a world junior and world youth level declined throughout the decade in terms of
VICKI PARNOV IS ONE TO WATCH THIS DECADE
medals won, but promising signs are present in the longer term development of these athletes through various national squads. Already the last world junior team have had six members good enough to earn selection in senior national teams: Vicky Parnov, Kurt Mulcahy, Ryan Gregson, Jess Rothwell, and Melissa Breen. How many more like them will follow and how brightly will they shine when they get there? Only time will tell, but it will be interesting watching.
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