The rise of long jumper Liam Adcock continued in Rome, Italy with his maiden Diamond League triumph coming in clutch fashion, joined by middle-distance stars Sarah Billings and Abbey Caldwell on the podium while Oliver Hoare qualified for the 2025 World Athletics Championships.
Sitting in third place after five rounds, Adcock errupted in the sixth and final round to steal victory from double Olympic champion Miltiadis Tentoglou (GRE) and world-leader Mattia Furlani (ITA), leaping to a career-best of 8.34m (-0.2) to win by a margin of 21cm.
Bettering his debut Diamond League performance in Xiamen where he finished in second place, the World Indoor medallist raised the bar once again:
“That happened to me in Xiamen, I was leading the whole way and then in the last round got overtaken, so I was like it’s my turn to clutch up now. I reckon I have a bit of clutch factor so it was great to be able to express that and jump a PB,” Adcock said.
“I wasn’t feeling that great leading into it but Furlani got the crowd fired up, obviously a home crowd for him, and it got me going too.”
Enjoying a breakthrough season at 28-years-old, Adcock has put injury troubles behind him to land himself as one of the world’s best in 2025 with the equal farthest jump outdoors to date this year.
“I’m old now which is tough, it’s making it difficult to get any interest from sponsors but I just keep showing up and doing what I can. I had a lot of years of injuries and this is my first year on the big boy circuit,” Adcock said.
Also hitting the podium in Rome was the middle-distance duo of Sarah Billings (Nic Bideau) and Abbey Cadlwell (Gavin Burren) who both registered career-best times in the 1500m, with Billings taking second place in 3:59.24 followed by Caldwell in third with 3:59.32.
The race came to life at the bell as the field of 15 started to bunch, with Billings making a strong move on the turn for home to hit the lead, only run down by Ireland’s Sarah Healy in the closing metres.
“I wanted to be in striking distance in the last lap tonight. I felt really good with 200m to go and just told myself to go for it,” Billings said.
National record holder Oliver Hoare (Dathan Ritzenhein) took a stride back towards his best when racing to a 2025 World Athletics Championships qualifying performance, clocking a time of 3:31.15 over 1500m to finish in ninth place.
The Commonwealth champion bided his time at the back of the field in the patiently run race, mustering a finishing burst to move up the rankings and finish well under the 3:33.00 qualfiying standard.
The Diamond League series will continue next week in Oslo on June 12.
By Lachlan Moorhouse, Australian Athletics
Posted 7/6/2025
