18 months after rupturing her hamstring at the Olympic Games, could a 32-year-old Michelle Jenneke be back at her best? The numbers suggest so, and Saturday’s Perth Track Classic awaits.
It might only be February, but Jenneke is wasting no time. The Olympic hurdler opened her season with a 100m personal best of 11.57 (+0.8), backed it up with a 12.96 (+1.4) showing in the 100m hurdles and then roared to the Australian 60m hurdles title in 7.98 (-0.2).
The 2025 World Athletics Championships marked just the second major national team Jenneke had missed since the 2014 Commonwealth Games, narrowly losing her race against the clock to recover from hamstring surgery and muster the world ranking points required to qualify.
“The last couple of years have been pretty rough on and off the track. Obviously at the Olympic Games in Paris, I ruptured my hamstring and tore it off the bone,” Jenneke says.
“The subsequent surgery from that meant it took a really long time to get back.”
The three-time Olympian’s absence from the green and gold appears to be short-lived, provisionally qualifying for the 2026 World Athletics Indoor Championships and chasing selection for the 2026 Commonwealth Games.
“I’m really hopeful that I will be ranked in the top 20 on the Road to Kujawy Pomorze list for World Indoors, because it would be really awesome to head over to Poland,” Jenneke says.
“This year I’m back to where I should be and I feel like I’m in the shape where I can actually go out and run some personal bests.”
It’s a bold statement for an athlete over a decade into their internation career, but the 32-year-old is full of confidence ahead of the Perth Track Classic on February 14, where she will contest the SRG Women’s 100m Hurdles.
“We record quite a bit of data in training and all the data this year tells me that I’m in the best shape that I have ever been in. I ran a 100m personal best recently and I opened up in Canberra with my fastest ever season opener,” Jenneke says.
“I have all these indicators that I’m the strongest I’ve ever been and hit my fastest maximum velocity, so all of that points towards something special.”
Jenneke’s personal best of 12.65-seconds was recorded at the 2024 FBK Games in Hengelo, with qualifying for the 2026 Commonwealth Games set at 12.73-seconds – a mark that the seasoned campaigner has bettered seven times in her career.
The 2026 Perth Track Classic will take place at the WA Athletics Stadium on February 14 as part of the Chemist Warehouse Summer Series. The meet is supported by the Western Australia Government, through the Department of Cultural Industries, Tourism and Sport and Venues West.
Tickets can be purchased HERE. Full entry lists available HERE.
By Lachlan Moorhouse, Australian Athletics
Posted 12/2/2026
