Joel Milburn captures his first national senior 400m title - Brisbane (© Freelance)
Brisbane, AustraliaThe reloading of Australia’s “Silver Bullets” 4x400m relay team continues apace but just who among them race in the individual 400m at the Beijing Olympics remains unclear even after the smoke cleared following an explosive showdown in the final event at the 86th Australian Championships last night.
First senior title for Milburn
Joel Milburn, 21, won his first senior title at the nationals which this year doubled as the major Olympic team selection trial at the Queensland Sports and Athletics Centre.
But his winning time of 45.90 was slower than the Olympic A-qualifying time of 45.55 which he has bettered only once, with his stunning breakthrough 45.19 at the NSW state championships in Sydney three weeks ago. He was sore during that race and at training three days later tore a tendon attached to the outside of his right knee and did not race until coming to the nationals.
Athletics Australia’s selection criteria stipulates that an athlete may gain automatic selection for the Beijing Games only if s/he achieves two A-qualifiers in the qualifying period and wins the national title.
Instead, Milburn, from the town of Springwood in the beautiful Blue Mountains just west of Sydney, played the role of spoiler, preventing runner-up John Steffensen (46.17) and defending champion Sean Wroe (46.23) from clinching their own automatic selection. Both semi-finalists at last year’s Osaka World championships had clocked at least two A-qualifiers, but needed the win tonight to seal the deal.
“I think John and Sean were aiming to peak for Beijing in August and hoping someone like me wouldn’t have a breakthrough in the meantime,” Milburn said after running down early pacemaker, the Commonwealth Games gold medallist Steffensen, with a withering surge through the third 100m section and down the home straight.
“It feels really good to be sort of equal to him (Steffensen), I’m looking forward to racing overseas with him.
“I knew John would go through the first 200 really quick and he’s definitely got a really fast back straight, so I thought that I could probably win it on the bend. I smashed that bend really hard and levelled up with him and from there on it’s just who could hold on the longest.”
Former 800m age group star Milburn – he was runner-up in the Australian under-16 800m and won the 400m in 2001 – showed greater aerobic power in the home straight on this occasion, a tribute to his Sydney coach Penny Gillies, the former Munich and Montreal Olympic hurdler.
The selectors now have a variety of options open to them, including an act of faith by naming any or all the trio of A-qualifiers in the coming week for individual 400m berths or, more likely, naming them and others in a relay squad and delaying the nomination of any individual 400m sprinters until June 23 when Athletics Australia wants to finalise its submission to the Australian Olympic Committee.
The option to delay selection would certainly work in favour of some of tonight’s finalists who didn’t quite get it right including big Queenslander Dylan Grant, fourth in 46.57 having run 45.69 last month, and especially Clinton Hill, the Athens Olympic relay anchorman who was first Australian in 45.78 behind Jeremy Wariner at the Melbourne Grand Prix on February 19.
Hill withdrew from the nationals to be with his wife Louise, at the birth of their first child, son Callum, who weighed in at 4.28kg late on the first night of these championships.
Samuels unleashes 62.95m PB in the Discus Throw
In cold and sometimes blustery winds Olympic A-marks were even more difficult to come by, but Sydney’s Dani Samuels wasn’t about to complain after hurling the Discus to a personal best 62.95m, beating the A-standard of 61.00m to automatically secure her ticket to Beijing where the Olympics will open on 8 August.
Samuels’ mark would rank her 17th on last year’s world list but she leads the new generation being at least three years younger than anyone ranked above her.
Yet despite battling a hamstring injury she incurred last week, Samuels clinched the title on her first throw, opting to pass on the five remaining rounds while 1997 World champion Beatrice Faumuina of New Zealand took second with her third-round 59.27m.
“I’m stunned I did a PB,” said Samuels, who won the World Youth title in 2005 and the World Junior title in 2006.
“I think I just nailed it technically, hopefully I can improve on that for Beijing. That throw (tonight) would get me in the top eight in Beijing and that’s my goal. I’ve been aiming to throw 65 by the time I get there.”
A visit from America’s former World Record-holder Mac Wilkins just before Christmas to work with Samuels and her coach, Dennis Knowles, proved both educational and inspirational for the Sydney student teacher.
Boyd set to follow parents’ Olympic footsteps
Women’s Pole Vault winner Alana Boyd also became an automatic selection after winning with an A-qualifying height of 4.45m which also means she has become a rare second generation Olympian. Her parents Ray Boyd (the 1982 Commonwealth champion who coaches her) and Denise, a 200m finalist at Montreal and Moscow, were both Olympians.
Lewis lands second straight 400/800 double
Tamsyn Lewis will be named in the Olympic team after adding the 800m tonight to the 400m title she won on Friday. Lewis ran 2:02.12 to defeat fellow Victorian Madeline Pape (2:03.52). It was Lewis’s 13th national title and the second year in a row she has won the 400-800 double.
Sydney’s Lachlan Renshaw completed an unbeaten season in winning the men’s 800 in a slow 1:47.57 but he is also close to Olympic selection, having run 1:45.79 at the Melbourne Grand Prix.
“This week ahs been the longest of my life,” a relieved Renshaw admitted. “I knew tonight that if I could pull off the win it would definitely put my hand up for selection. And if I lost they’d say ‘come back and try again later’.”
Elsewhere...
In other results Daniel Batman retain the 200m title in 20.89 (-1.2m/s) from New Zealand’s James Dolphin (21.13) and Matt Brown (21.42) as 2005 World championship finalist Patrick Johnson broke down after 80m with a probable hamstring injury and did not finish.
Fiji’s tall Makelesi Batimala won the women’s 200 in 23.76 (-0.4m/s) from New Zealander Monique Williams (23.79) with little Sydney teenager Olivia Tauro (23.86) claiming the national title as first Australian, giving her coach Penny Gillies a great national title double tonight as she also coached 400m winner Joel Milburn.
World Junior champion Robbie Crowther (AIS), a brilliant indigenous talent from north Queensland won the Long Jump with 7.86m (+0.3m/s) and Victoria’s Ben Harrdine won the Discus Throw with a fine 62.37m from resurgent Sydney athlete Peter Elvy (58.92m).
New Zealand’s Andrea Miller won the 100m Hurdles in 13.56 against a strong and cool 2.7m/s headwind to beat Indonesia’s Dedeh Erawati (13.72), Japan’s Mami Ishino (13.91) and the first Australian, Queenland’s Fiona Cullen (13.98) who collected a grand double having earlier won the 100m sprint championship.
Mike Hurst (Sydney Daily Telegraph) for the IAAF
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