By Ian Ransom
MELBOURNE, May 4 (Reuters) – While Jamaica stole the show with world records, Australia underlined its status as an emerging power on the track with a bronze medal and a long-awaited national record at the World Athletics Relays despite missing headline names.
The Australian quartet of Luke van Ratingen, Reece Holder, Thomas Reynolds and Aidan Murphy clocked 2:55.20 in the men’s 4×400 metres on Sunday to finish third behind hosts Botswana and South Africa at the Gaborone stadium, lifting Australia to fourth on the all-time list.
With Reynolds subbed in for Matthew Hunt, the team improved on their 2:57.30 in the qualification round which blitzed the nation’s 42-year-old record of 2:59.70 at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.
“It was so surreal and such a vibe out there,” Holder said of the atmosphere.
“To come out and win a medal and do a time like that is pretty incredible.”
The men’s 4×100 team of Lachlan Kennedy, Joshua Azzopardi, Christopher Ius and Rohan Browning finished fourth in 38 seconds flat, just outside the medals behind the U.S., South Africa and Germany.
However, it came without two of the country’s fastest men as emerging talent Gout Gout and California-based Eddie Nketia sat out the event.
“We wanted to make the final and came wanting a medal, so to get so close is disappointing,” Ius said.
“But to show the rest of the world what we can do is such a good thing, and I think we are improving every year which is exciting.”
Established track power Jamaica earlier stamped their dominance in the mixed relay, clocking a blistering 39.62 seconds to win the 4x100m in a world record, having become the first nation to break the 40-second barrier in the qualifying round.
However, Australia’s athletics chiefs were thrilled with their contingent’s less splashy gains, which included qualifying six relay teams to next year’s world championships in Beijing.
“To have them all qualify was the first part of it but to also have some phenomenal performances, especially the men’s 4×400, was incredible, really,” high-performance boss Andrew Faichney told Reuters on Monday.
Australia will use the July 23-August 2 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow as another waypoint on the road to Beijing.
While 18-year-old Gout will skip the Games to focus on the under-20 world championships, Australian Athletics are hoping Nketia can commit to a run in Glasgow.
The Commonwealth nations’ top runners have often skipped the multi-sport event but Australia takes it very seriously, and topped the athletics medal table at the last two Games at Birmingham 2022 and the Gold Coast in 2018.
“We’ve got some awesome athletes who are doing so, so well. Hopefully we’ll be able to exceed what we’ve done in the past,” said Faichney.
(Reporting by Ian Ransom in Melbourne; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)
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