Sandery and Cowley Crowned 35km Race Walk Champions in Melbourne

An eventful morning at Melbourne’s Albert Park saw Olympians Olivia Sandery and Rhydian Cowley all but punch their tickets to the 2025 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, claiming Australian 35km Race Walking titles in style.

The record books will show no signs of adversity for Olivia Sandery (SA, Jared Tallent) who blasted a new Australian record of 2:45:31 to eclipse Rebecca Henderson’s mark of 2:47:34, but the context of a 3.5-minute penalty before the halfway point of the race only adds to the Olympian’s feat.

Leading the charge with Elizabeth McMillen (NSW, Jared Tallent) in the early stages, Sandery received her third card and was forced to serve the penalty, before mounting a historic comeback - with both athletes qualifying for the 2025 World Athletics Championships to be held in Tokyo.

“As soon as I left the box, my one goal was to catch up to Lizzie [McMillen]. Once I got there, I was feeling good and thought why not go for it. If my coach Jared [Tallent] yelled at me to slow down then I probably would have,” Sandery said.

“That’s what I’m proudest of, not getting too in my own head about it. It would have been easy to pull out or give up, but I knew how fit I was and really didn’t want to waste the opportunity.” 

Sandery beat home McMillen who clocked 2:47:26 to sneak under the 2:48:00 World Championships standard, while Allanah Pitcher (NSW, Frank Overton) rounded out the podium in 2:57:51.

“It’s very special. It’s my first Open Australian record so it obviously means a lot. I was just telling myself that I don’t want to do another one, so we are going to get it done,” Sandery said.

Three-time Olympian Rhydian Cowley (VIC, Brent Vallance) made it three Australian 35km Championship wins from three starts, as he stamped his authority on the longer distance of the walks.

Taking the lead from the gun, Cowley kept the pace alongside rising stars Will Thompson (VIC, Brent Vallance) and Mitchell Baker (ACT, Jared Tallent) but in typical Cowley fashion, waited patiently until the final laps of the race to stretch his legs and finish in 2:32:33 - a 1-minute, 17 second lead ahead of his closest rivals.

With World Athletics recently changing the distances of the race walks with the event increasing to the marathon distance of 42.195km at international events in 2026, Cowley was proud to tie his 35km career as a three-time champion.

“Especially now that World Athletics has announced the change, I thought it would be good to be the only male Australian 35km Race Walk Champion we’ve ever had!,” Cowley said.

“It was great to walk together with Thommo and Mitch most of the way and drag them through to some good times. It would be good to have three Aussies on the start line in Tokyo next year, so I reckon they’re sitting pretty good for that but I think a bit of that old-man strength broke the back of them.”

Thompson and Baker finished the course at Albert Park in 2:34:15 and 2:35:06 respectively, with the Olympic medallist crediting the next generation of talent for keeping him motivated.

“It has been hard work getting back into training after the Olympics but I know those young fellas are coming for me, so I had to put in a bit of work to keep them off. It’s good to have them keeping me honest and it’s also nice to help mentor them. It gives me something to do as I get towards my old age,” the 33-year-old said.

The Invitational 20km events were won by Olympian Declan Tingay (WA, Brent Vallance) who kicked off a pedestrian pace to clock 1:25:54, while World Under 20 representative Alexandra Griffin (WA, Jared Tallent) marked her 20km debut in style when winning in 1:36:32.

By Lachlan Moorhouse and Sascha Ryner, Athletics Australia
Posted 15/12/2024