26.06.2009

Top Aussies out in force on a big weekend of action

It’s another weekend and another big round of track and field action for Australia’s top athletes at home and abroad.

Tonight round five of the Gold Coast Winter Series kicks off the weekend action, as Sally McLellan, Joel Milburn, Melissa Breen and members of the Belgrade-bound World University Games team hit the track.

In wet conditions on the Gold Coast last week, McLellan posted three wins from as many starts, taking out the 100m (11.40 +0.0), 200m (23.30 +0.0) and 100m hurdles (12.92).

The Olympic silver medalist will no doubt be hoping for improved conditions and quick times in one of her final outings on her home track as she counts down to the world titles. 

Fellow sprinter Melissa Breen tonight returns to the track following her hit-out at the Australian Institute of Sport last weekend, her final run on her local track before turning her attention to Europe and the University Games.

Overseas, reigning national 400m hurdles champion Tamsyn Lewis will be looking to continue her rise up the ranks of the one-lap event when she lines up at a meet in Bottrop, Germany, tonight.

The 30-year-old Victorian is yet to confirm which of the 400m and 400m hurdles events she will contest in Berlin.
Tomorrow two-time 400m hurdles world champion Jana Rawlinson will join fellow Australians Scott Martin (shot put) and Lachlan Renshaw (800m) at a European Athletics meet in Malaga, Spain.

Rawlinson’s run marks her first appearance in more than 12 months on the European circuit since a forced layover to injury.

Further meet information, including start lists, is available here.

Also in action on the continent tomorrow are Lauren Boden (400m hurdles), Alana Boyd (pole vault) and Brendan Cole, who will compete in Nivelles, Belgium.

Boyd last week cleared 4.20m on the Gold Coast and will be hoping to go higher again as her second world championships campaign draws near.

On Sunday, west Australian Kim Mickle kicks off her European campaign at the javelin carnival in Pihtipudas, Finland.

Looking further ahead, Tuesday sees Jeremy Roff (1500m) and Sean Wroe (400m) line up at the Lille Metropole meet in France.  

The reigning national 400m champion arrives in Europe riding high on the back of the sprint double he claimed on the Gold Coast last weekend.

Wroe, who will compete in the 400m and 4x400m in Berlin in August, crossed the line ahead of sprint stalwart Patrick Johnson to take out the 100m in 10.54 (0.0). Wroe’s time was just four hundredths of a second outside the personal best he set in Hobart in January.

The 24-year-old backed up his winning form in the 200m clocking 21.00 (0.2), tantalisingly close to his best of 20.97 set on the same track three weeks ago.

Closer to home, Australia’s world youth championships team will have its final hit-out on home soil on the Gold Coast on Tuesday ahead of its departure for Bressanone, Italy, for the sixth edition of the IAAF competition.

Sally McLellan will also compete at the Queensland meet. 

In other news, national 1500m record holder Sarah Jamieson, who was due to embark on her third world championships campaign, has withdrawn from the Australian team due to a calf injury that she feels wouldn’t have allowed her to prepare properly for Berlin.

In international news, the United States, Jamaica and Kenya are in the midst of their highly competitive national championships which double as the selection trials for the world championships.

The Jamaican championships will feature a 100m showdown between the world's fastest man Usain Bolt and former world record holder Asafa Powell.

Powell, who is still suffering from an ankle injury, has been far from his best this year, placing seventh at the Reebok Grand Prix in 10.10 and second at the Prefontaine Classic in 10.07.

Bolt, on the other hand, clocked a flying 9.77 in Ostrava earlier this month.