Aussie stars battle but there’s no Ultimate triumph
Mitch Phillips |
Cam Myers and Jess Hull have both delivered superb performances on the track to give Australia an impressive final day of the inaugural Ultimate Athletics Championship in Budapest.
Potential superstar Myers ran what he felt was a “perfect” race when finishing runner-up in the 1500 metres while the evergreen Hull was second in the 5000m on Sunday (Monday AEST) as they both picked up $US75,000 ($A105,000) for their excellent efforts.
But, ultimately, the Australian challenge eventually ended without a single triumph in the sport’s new, lucrative three-day global event.
There was a disappointing start to the night too when 21-year-old Torrie Lewis withdrew from the 200m with injury, a day after the country’s fastest man, Lachlan Kennedy, failed to make the men’s 100m final.
Hull, as she does so often, immediately lifted the mood, though. After fading to ninth in Saturday’s 1500m final, she was an outsider in the longer event with her best time among the slowest in the field, but with the race run at a steady pace both she and Commonwealth champ Rose Davies settled into the pack.
Runaway winner Likina Amebaw injected some serious speed to open a 30m lead with two laps to go but while Davies faded, a charging Hull turned on her 1500m afterburners to find a way through on the inside and snatch a brilliant second behind the Ethiopian star in a massive lifetime best of 14min 32.39sec
“That’s much more reflective of the athlete I am,” said a delighted Hull. “I don’t have an answer for the 1500 last night. I was just quick to say ‘forget about it and move on’. I’ve been able to do that a few times in a 5K now – bounce back – so I’m really proud of that. I’ve had a great year.”
The men’s 1500m was one of the deepest fields of the competition — even without Norway great Jakob Ingebrigtsen, who withdrew after winning the 5000m on Friday — as mile world record holder Josh Kerr, Olympic champion Cole Hocker and last year’s surprise world champion Isaac Nader all lined up.
The 20-year-old Myers, however, was more than qualified to operate in such exalted company after winning the Diamond League final in Brussels a week ago.
Annoyed at how he raced when losing to Kerr over the mile in the Commonwealth Games, he ran a much smarter race on Sunday, extricating himself from the inside at the bell to move second and give himself clear track to try to reel in Kerr.
The Briton did not falter, clocking 3:29.35 and leaving Myers to settle for second in 3:29.68.
“It’s bitter-sweet,” said Myers. “I thought at 200 to go that I was going to give it proper crack, I felt like I wasn’t working too hard.
“At 100 I thought I still had a good chance and then I came to 50 to go and I was like, ‘wow, that’s what a world record holder looks like!’
“So, he was just too strong today, but I think I ran a perfect race.”
Myers said he has had an “awesome season” and made a real step up after years of collecting age-group records and titles. “I’ve got faster over 800, and I’ve got stronger over 5K and I think that’s showing,” he said.
“So, any race scenario that plays out, I think that I’m going to be a factor. This is me becoming the athlete I wanted to be.”
The event closed in front of another capacity 20,000 crowd with two excellent 200m finals where American duo Kenny Bednarek and Melissa Jefferson-Wooden – whose 21.47sec run made her the third-fastest ever over the distance – completed 100/200m doubles to earn $US300,000 ($A419,000) each.
AAP