It was a night of broken barriers and broken hearts at the Australian Athletics Championships as sprint king Lachlan Kennedy shattered 10-seconds and middle-distance star Cameron Myers made history once again, while the most anticipated race of the championships fell flat.
Becoming the first Australian man to break 10-seconds on home soil, Kennedy (QLD, Andrew Iselin) blitzed the 100m heats in a time of 9.96 (+0.2) to carve 0.02-seconds off his personal best, edging closer to Patrick Johnson’s 9.93-second national record.
“I was super relaxed it almost felt easy, so I think I have a bit more in the tank for the final,” Kennedy said.
“This is only my second 100m of the year so we are off to a cracking start.”
The fastest qualifier for tomorrow’s semi-finals, the 22-year-old set the tone in his quest for his maiden Australian title, where he will face defending champion Rohan Browning (NSW, Jack Edwards) and the in-form Joshua Azzopardi (NSW, Rob Marks).
“At the end of the day, I’m here to win that National title tomorrow,” Kennedy said.
Joining the history-making party was Cameron Myers (ACT, Dick Telford) who became the first person in the world to shatter the 3:30 barrier on Australian soil, grinding a star-studded Men’s 1500m field into the ground in 3:29.85.
Winding the pace up throughout the affair, Myers was left with just Commonwealth champion Oliver Hoare (NSW, Dathan Ritzenhein) on his back entering the final lap, eventually stretching away to leave the field in his wake as World Indoor bronze medallist Adam Spencer (VIC, Tomasz Lewandowski) clinched bronze behind Hoare.
“To do this in front of a home crowd and the way I did it, is awesome,” Myers said.
“It took me a while this year to get going, but I’ve got going now and hopefully this shows I will be a real contender in the European season.
“It’s awesome the sport is in such a good position and I hope it grows year after year.”
Touted as the race of the championships, the Women’s 1500m Final provided 1450m of pure cinema before unravelling into chaos, ending with Olympic silver medallist and race leader Jessica Hull (NSW, Simon Hull) laying flat on the track and Sarah Billings (VIC, Nic Bideau) the Australian champion.
Rising star Claudia Hollingsworth (VIC, Craig Mottram) was the first athlete across the line but was later disqualified (TR17.1.2), leaving Billings with the gold in a pedestrian 4:17.36 over Abbey Caldwell (VIC, Gavin Burren) and Georgia Griffith (VIC, Nic Bideau).
Hull picked herself up to finish in 11th place, turning her attention to tomorrow’s 800m heats.
Heptathlete Mia Scerri (VIC, Ralph Newton) served up one of the biggest upsets of the championships to date when defeating Olympians Tori West (QLD, Eric Brown & Gavin Hunter) and Camryn Newton-Smith (QLD, Ralph Newton) with a breakthrough performance.
Scoring 6175 points with five personal bests from seven events, the 21-year-old fell just 25 points short of the Commonwealth Games qualification standard, with her best scores coming with a 1.81m clearance in the high jump and a 13.97 (-0.1) showing in the 100m hurdles.
World Under 20 long jump champion Delta Amidzovski (NSW, Becky Amidzovski) piled the centimetres onto her career-best to land a Commonwealth Games qualifier ahead of Sunday’s final, leaping 6.84m (+0.3) in her first and only jump of the qualifying round to land at fifth on the Australian all-time list.
The Para-athletics action was led by Sam Carter (ACT, Fred Periac, T54) who impressed to win the Men’s 100m Wheelchair title in a time of 14.49 (+1.2) and BASELINE score of 94.06 over Rheed McCracken (NSW, Louise Sauvage, T34), before McCracken returned serve in the 400m with a 54.70-second showing for 89.72 points to level the score.
Meanwhile in the field, Desleigh Owusu (NSW, Andrew Murphy) won her fourth straight Women’s Triple Jump title with a leap of 13.58m (+0.4) to beat World Under 20 medallist Tiana Boras (VIC, Alwyn Jones) with 13.21m (+0.2).
Full results from the 2026 Australian Athletics Championships can be found HERE.
By Lachlan Moorhouse, Australian Athletics
Posted 10/4/2026
