Early season start for speedsters as Olympics and World Indoors beckons

8 January 2024

Early season start for speedsters as Olympics and World Indoors beckons

With less than 200 days to go until the Paris Olympics and a World Indoor Championships during the Australian domestic season, NSW’s sprint stars will kick off their year earlier than expected this Saturday in Wollongong at the Illawarra Track Challenge. The line-up includes Commonwealth Games speedsters Rohan Browning, Joshua Azzopardi, Ella Connelly and Jacob Despard (TAS).

With entries still open for a further two days (until noon Wednesday), more leading NSW and Australian athletes are expected to chase an early start for the season in Wollongong.

The program includes a 100m and the NSW 60m championship with a heat and final, making it a worthwhile workout for the sprinters. Also attracting interest is the growing status of the 60 metre event, now with full record status and included in the World Athletics 100 metre points. Another incentive is the World Athletics Indoor Championships, now less than two months away for those with selection aspirations.

Maybe a new name to the NSW athletics community is former Queenslander Ella Connolly, who is training alongside Rohan Browning, under the coaching of Andrew Murphy.

The Illawarra Track Challenge will be remembered for a mid-pandemic breakthrough run by Rohan Browning, who on 16 January 2021 clocked a wind assisted 9.96 100m with a 3.3m/s wind. He would go on to win his 100m heat at the Tokyo Olympics in his current 100m PB of 10.01.

NSW Short Track 60 metre State records

With World Athletics raising the status of the 60m and allowing records to be set indoors or outdoors, NSW has adopted the following 60 metre records. For some other ages more research is required to confirm the record marks.

MEN

256322. 60m 6.52 (ind) Matt Shirvington (ASW) 07 Mar 1999

13494. 60m 6.78 (0.7) Jackson Rowe (CBT) 18 Sep 2022
13494. 60m 6.82 (0.7) Sebastian Sultana (CBT) 18 Sep 2022

WOMEN

256322. 60m 7.28 (0.0) Monique Quirk (CBT) 16 Jan 2021

13494. 60m 7.41 (1.5) Aleksandra Stoilova (WES) 12 Mar 2022
13494. 60m 7.41 (1.5) Aleksandra Stoilova (WES) 12 Mar 2022

Feature athletes 2024 Illawarra Track Challenge – entered @ Monday 10am

60/100m: Commonwealth Games competitors - Rohan Browning, Joshua Azzopardi, Ella Connelly and Jacob Despard; 2017 Stawell Gift winner Matt Rizzo; 10.42 teenager Alex Colgan; 11.46 100m sprinter Samantha Geddes

400m: Conor Fry 2022 National 400m hurdles champion, Helen Pretorius National 400m bronze medalist

David Tarbotton for Athletics NSW

Image: Rohan Browning on the way to 9.96 at the 2021 Illawarra Track Challenge (image courtesy of David Tarbotton)

EVENT PROFILE:
What: Illawarra Track Challenge

Where: Kerryn McCann Athletic Centre, Wollongong

Date: Saturday 13 January 2024

Time: from 1.00pm to about 7.15pm (final timetable tbc)

Entries close: noon Wednesday 10 January 2024

More information: where to enter, list of events, rules, draft & final timetables, entry list (when available) https://www.nswathletics.org.au/events/217644/