Athletics

Looking back with the crystal-clear view afforded by a decade of hindsight, Cathy Freeman acknowledges she should have retired straight after winning the 400m gold medal that defined the Sydney Olympics for millions of Australians.
But as hard as that race was to win – especially with the weight of a nation riding on her back [...] Read article

It was, admittedly, a devilishly tough choice. As the world championships of track and field were getting underway this August, the governing body of athletics asked South Africa’s top administrators for the sport to consider withdrawing Caster Semenya.
This was an option that might have spared the runner some of the subsequent trauma of having her [...] Read article

I wonder if any of the people that have been writing about Cassie Samenya’s gender have stopped to consider where she comes from. Her parents live in a small village outside of a rural town in Northern Limpopo, which is about 400km north of Johannesburg.
There, a school teacher spotted her running in races at [...] Read article

It may be time to extend those sand pits because Usain Bolt is considering the long jump. The Jamaican sprint star said on Thursday he would like to try the long jump some day.
If Bolt comes close to the standards he has set in the sprints, the world record of 8.95 metres could be in [...] Read article

It’s been a mixed weekend for Australian sports. While our athletics team achieved its best ever result at a World Championships, with two gold and two bronze medals, we surrendered the Ashes back to England and the Wallabies lurched to their third straight Tri-Nations loss.
Thank God then we have the power to reminisce back to [...] Read article

As an occasional athletics viewer, Jamaican phenomenon Usain Bolt has refreshed my (and I’d argue many peoples’) perception of the sport, not because of his amazing world records, but because he comes across as a good bloke.
Bolt was undoubtedly the superstar of the 2009 World Championships in Athletics which finished up in Berlin on Sunday [...] Read article

Jamaica’s Usain Bolt dominated the world athletics championships in Berlin in the same way he did the Beijing Olympics, winning triple gold and shattering the world records for the 100m and 200m.
Bolt, whose razzmatazz and light-heartedness have offered a much-needed breath of fresh air to the world of athletics, beat American defending champion and arch-rival [...] Read article

You know it’s been a particularly average weekend for Australian sport when we’re talking up athletics at the water cooler on Monday morning.
Strangely, it seems talking about “the great Hooker” is somehow less confronting than a discussion about our cricketers or the Wallabies.
Thankfully, it may just be that a guy flinging himself over a bar [...] Read article

Head coach Eric Hollingsworth is confident Australia can parlay its best world athletics championships medal haul into more Commonwealth domination next year in Delhi.
And the long-term project for success at the 2012 London Olympics remains firmly on track.
Led by inspirational captain Steve Hooker, the Berlin team genuinely embraced their new identity as the Flame in [...] Read article

Australian pole vaulter Steve Hooker added the world championships title to his Beijing Olympics gold medal with an heroic victory on Saturday.
Hooker tore his thigh muscle in training 12 days ago and needed a local anaesthetic before taking his place in the final.
He did not enter the competition until the bar had reached 5.85m, by [...] Read article

It was the blonde moment on the road to glorious gold. Australian Dani Samuels was sitting in 10th place in the world championships discus final on Friday night, needing to improve at least two places if she was to remain in the competition when the field was cut from 12 to eight for the final [...] Read article

South African 800-metre world champion Caster Semenya nearly boycotted the awards ceremony after feeling devastated by the row over her gender, her family and athletics officials said on Friday.
“She said she did not want to go on the podium, but I told her she must,” Athletics South Africa president Leonard Chuene told The Times newspaper [...] Read article

An intriguing story to emerge this week is that of Caster Semenya, the South African 800m runner who has been the subject of intense speculation regarding her gender. The South African delegation is standing behind her, but the IAAF wants a gender test to be done.
The test is a complex procedure and requires the [...] Read article

Usain Bolt added another gold and another record as he continued his stunning domination of world sprinting with victory in the 200-metres at the world championships on Thursday.
Gritting his teeth and pointing to the clock as soon as the new world record flashed up, Bolt took his to five-for-five in major sprint events with the [...] Read article

South Africa’s new 800-metre world champion Caster Semenya was declared a “golden girl” by local press Thursday, with the athlete’s family shrugging off questions about the runner’s gender.
All major newspapers’ front pages pictured a triumphant Semenya who powered to a 1minute 55.45seconds win – the world’s best this year – shortly after the athletics governing [...] Read article