Today Brendan Cole and Lauren Boden have been added to the Australian track and field team for the London 2012 Olympic Games. Congratulation to both from all associated with the MattyB DEPT.
Category Archives: 2011/12 Season
Boden A-mazing
23 year old AIS athlete, Lauren Boden, has made a huge step towards making the London Olympics with a superb 400m Hurdles victory at the Sydney Track Classic in a time of 55.45. This time secured the precious A qualifier which is a major requirement for selection onto the Australian team.
Boden , who has been with coach Matt Beckenham since she was 14, is a wonderful story of patience and sticking to a long term plan.
“When Lauren started she couldn’t break 13 seconds for a 100m or even 60 seconds for a 400m so we have taken a long term sequential approach to give the best chance for her to run when it counts which is as a senior athlete .” Beckenham also remembers “there were quite a few sessions with tears in the early days as well as she worked on her hurdle technique on both legs but Saturday night’s run makes it all worth it.”
Also in the Women’s 400m Hurdles, 17 year old Chloe Jamieson showed some consistency from Hobart to run 61.65. Will 3 runs around the same mark Jamieson will be looking to make a big jump over the next month leading into the Junior National Championships.
Melissa Breen ran with maturity to take out the Women’s 100m in time of 11.49 in not ideal conditions for the sprint events. She also claimed third in the 200m with a time of 23.75.
Brendan Cole ran a much better race compared to Perth 7 days ago to just miss running under 50 seconds in the Men’s 400m Hurdles (50.02). A mistake at the last hurdle cost him critical momentum and the victory but overall the signs from the race were very positive. Training partner, 33 year old Mowen Boino (PNG) ran the fastest he has run for almost 4 years to finish 3rd in a time of 50.88. The 3 time Olympian is now on track to make an amazing 4th Olympic Games. Ollie Wurm also improved on his run from Perth with a time of 54.36.
Breen blasts two B qualifiers for Olympics
In an outstanding display of sprinting in Perth 21 year old Melissa Breen ran 2 Olympic “B” standard performances in the space of 90minutes.
Fully recovered from a freak neural issue in Adelaide last week that prevented her from pushing out of the blocks Breen exploded out this time to record 11.35 (1.7w) in the first race. She was then able to back this up with arguably a better run in the second race recording 11.36 with a less supporting wind of 0.9m/s.
“I knew from training that I was in PB shape so it is a good positive indicator to run these times in competition conditions.”
It is a huge weekend for the MattyB DEPT with athletes competing in four states. Breen in Perth along with Brandan Galic who ran 10.98 in the 100m.
Also last night three athletes competed in Canberra highlighted by a huge PB by 19 year old Rachael Carnegie running 57.84 in the 400m taking over a second of her best. Jesse Matthews also ran a season best and under 50 seconds in the 400m (49.81) to take victory over Luke Storta (50.33).
Birthday boy Ollie Wurm runs a 400m at AVShield in Victoria on Saturday hoping to challenge his PB of 47.62.
To round of a huge weekend the 400m Hurdlers are hoping for pleasant conditions down in Tasmania at the Hobart Track Classic. Lauren Boden and Chloe Jamieson will compete in the Women’s while Brendan Cole and honorary member Mowen Boino (training with squad for 3 months) will run in the Men’s event.
MattyB DEPT. (MBD) 