16.03.2010

Thomas takes top Tasmanian honour

Australian Flame athlete Tristan Thomas has capped a remarkable year on the international track circuit, being named TIS Male Athlete of the Year at the 46th annual Tasmanian Sports Awards in Hobart on Friday night.

Thomas was awarded the honour ahead of Australian cricket captain Ricky Ponting, golfer Mathew Goggin, cricketer Ben Hilfenhaus and hockey gun Eddie Ockenden.

Thomas enjoyed a stellar run in 2009, kick-starting his year with eleven personal best times over the 100m, 200m, 400m, 400m hurdles and 800m across the domestic season. At the Sydney Track Classic in February he lowered his lifetime best to 48.86 – the second-fastest time ever recorded by an Australian – to defeat Olympic bronze medallist Bershawn Jackson (USA) in his premier event, the 400m hurdles.

In March Thomas claimed back-to-back national titles in the 400m hurdles, his outstanding season capped by taking out Athletics Australia’s Male Athlete of the Season award at the close of the domestic calendar.

At the Osaka Grand Prix in May Thomas’s ominous form continued, slicing 0.18 seconds off the personal best he recorded in Sydney to place second in 48.68, just .08 behind reigning world champion Kerron Clement (USA) and the third-fastest time of the year at that time.

In Belgrade, Serbia, in July Thomas took out the 400m hurdles at the World University Games, clocking the second-fastest time of his career to cross the line in 48.75, just .07 off his personal best.

At his world championships debut in Berlin (GER) in August, Thomas placed seventh in his semi-final and 14th overall, clocking 49.76. He went on to win bronze in the 4x400m relay alongside Australian Flame teammates Ben Offereins, John Steffensen and Sean Wroe, the quartet crossing the line in 3:00.90.

Twenty-three-year-old Thomas, whose 2009/10 season has been railroaded by an achilles injury, is one of the rising stars of the Australian track and field team and an athlete to watch on the world scene.

Now based at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra, Thomas’s win over high-profile fellow Tasmanians Ponting, Goggin, Hilfenhaus and Ockenden on Friday night launched a big weekend for Australian athletics that saw a small but world-class team record the nation’s best-ever result at a world indoor championships.

Gold medals to Steve Hooker (pole vault) and Fabrice Lapierre (long jump) and a bronze medal to Mitchell Watt (long jump) highlighted a stellar turnout by the Australians at the Aspire Dome in Doha, Qatar.

Lapierre, who leapt to a new Australian record of 8.19m in the qualifying round of the men’s long jump (previously 8.11m), was joined by Australian Flame teammate David McNeill in re-writing the record books across the weekend, McNeill storming home to win the men’s 5000m at the NCAA Indoor Championships in Fayetteville, Arkansas (USA) in a time of 3:36.41 (previously 3:37.77). 

Athletics Australia congratulates Tristan Thomas on being named TIS Male Athlete of the Year in 2010.