Liam Adams

DOB: 4 Sep 1986

Age: 34

Club/State: Athletics Essendon (VIC)
Born/Resident: Melbourne/Moonee Ponds
Coach: Andrew White
Instagram: liamadamsrunner
Occupation: Electrician

Liam was spotted at primary school as having long-distance potential. He competed in the nationals for cross-country and won a medal.

That started a career of training and coaching that led to the Australian 5,000m title in 2004 when he was 17. Moving into the senior ranks took Liam to World Cross Country and Half-Marathon events, World University Games and even to the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games – where he finished 7^th - and 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games for 5th.

“The fact was that when I pushed up a distance each year, as I got older, I would get better the further we ran. It confirmed to me that I’d most likely end up being a marathon runner,” Liam said.

But despite always having a yen to be an Olympian he thought the standard needed might be just outside his reach.

Then in April 2012, while competing in the USA, he just missed the London Olympic qualifying time for the 10,000m by a couple of seconds. That motivated Liam to move up to the Marathon for Rio.

He nailed the qualifying time at both the Chicago and Warsaw Marathons. Liam was finally an Olympian but a slip at the start of the Rio Games marathon, saw him damage his ankle. He persevered and was still the first Australian home in 31^st place.

Leading up to Tokyo, he ran 9^th in the Berlin Marathon (2017), 1^st in Melbourne (2018), 2^nd in Kobe (2018), 6^th in the Gold Coast Marathon (2019) and set a personal best 2hrs:10m.48s finishing 13^th Lake Biwa Marathon in Japan (2020).