Chloe Jamieson has taken out the gold medal in the hotly contested Under 18 400m Hurdles at the National Junior Championships in Sydney.
With 5 athletes qualified for the World Youth Championships it shaped as an epic contest. Running from lane 4 Chloe set up the race extremely well and showed strength in to the wind to hold on for victory in another World Youth qualifying time of 60.37.
This result ensures that Chloe is an automatic selection for the World Youth Championships which will be held in Lille, France in July.
In other great squad news Rachael Carnegie ran a PB to make the final of the under 20 200m. Her time of 25.61 shows great promise for the step back to 400m Hurdles next season.
Melissa Breen also competed at this meet in an invitation 4 x 100m relay which Sally Pearson, Charlotte Van Veenendal and Laura Whaler. Chasing the World Championship qualifying mark of 44.00 they fell agonizingly close with a time of 44.05. I am confident they will run this time at the Sydney GP this weekend to secure they place on the team headed to Korea in August.
It has been a busy but successful week for the MattyB DEPT. Fresh off a great weekend at Lithgow for the squad Melissa Breen and Brendan Cole competed midweek at the Melbourne Track Classic. Brendan ran a season best of 50.25 for second behind american Justin Gaymon (49.75) whilst Melissa Breen (11.89) finished 4th in the 100m behind Sally Pearson (11.52).
Brendan Cole backed up the next day to run a solid 50.70 in the heats of the Victorian State Championships.
Back in Canberra on the weekend several athletes competing in the AACT state Championships. First up was Lauren Boden who ran a season best of 56.37 in far from ideal conditions with training partner Chloe Jamieson running 61.79 for 3rd.
Also on Saturday Stephen Sheppard 22.93 (2nd), Jaryd Cowley 23.27 (4th) and Rachael Carnegie 25.90 (3rd) ran the 200m all into strong headwinds.
On Sunday the sprinters were still faced with headwinds with Stephen Sheppard the first ACT across the line in 11.38 (won by Liam Gander in 10.71 -1.4w). Melissa Breen had a great back up from Melbourne to run 11.61 into a -0.7 wind with Laura Whaler second in 11.76.
To finish of the titles Brendan Matthews ran second in the 400m in a new personal best time of 48.20. The race was won by Keith Sheehy (48.18) with fellow MattyB DEPT. squad athletes Luke Storta (50.27) and Jaryd Cowley (50.92) 4th and 5th respectively. In the Women’s 400m Rachael Carnegie was just over the 60 second barrier running 3rd in 60.30.
MattyB DEPT. (MBD) 