Alisha Lovrich/Athletics NZ
Pole vaulter Eliza McCartney has had a successful season in 2023 as she has found form on the comeback trail.
Talk about your icing on the cake. Olympic pole vault bronze medallist Eliza McCartney has signed off on a memorable comeback season down under by unleashing a season’s best clearance of 4.75 metres to claim victory at the Australian championships.
The 26-year-old Aucklander continued her eye-catching form to wrap up the Australasian summer by cruising to victory in Brisbane on Saturday, edging squadmate, and Commonwealth Games bronze medallist, Imogen Ayris (4.40m) with a second commanding display in a week.
Just seven days earlier at the same venue she had cleared a then season’s best, and world champs auto standard, of 4.71 metres for victory at the Brisbane Track Classic, also outjumping fellow Kiwi Olivia McTaggart (4.45m).
On Saturday McCartney, much as she had done a week previous, started a little nervously, taking three attempts to get over her opening height of 4.50, then knocking off 4.65m and 4.75m at the first cracks. The 2016 Rio Olympic bronze medallist, who has a PB of 4.94m, bowed out with three misses at 4.85m.
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It has been a wildly successful domestic season for McCartney who finally appears to have left her injury issues behind her. She has been dogged by Achilles and hamstring issues for much of the past four or five years and has gone right back to basics in a reset of her running form.
After her clearance of 4.71m at the Brisbane Track Classic she spoke about her hope that she was finally finding her rhythm after working hard to get back to her full 14-step runup.
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The Kiwi vaulter said she has had to change a lot of her training and lifestyle to finally overcome the injuries that have plagued her in recent years.
“I’m finding my feet quite a bit this season and it’s all about lots of practice jumping … I’ve started doing a 14-step runup, which is my favourite – that was my step up when winning bronze in Rio and for my PB (of 4.94m in 2018). I think that extra speed meant I didn’t have to work so hard, and I can just go for it.”
The Aucklander has built nicely through the domestic season, claiming her first national title in six years when she cleared 4.61m for victory in Wellington at the start of March, and will be rapt with her positive finish to the season down under.
McCartney will now take a brief pause before starting her buildup for the world champs. She and McTaggart have both nailed the auto standards for Budapest, and can plan their preparation schedules without the pressure of having to post qualifying marks.
Meanwhile hurdler Josh Hawkins provided the other Kiwi highlight of the Aussie champs with a remarkable record-breaking effort to duck under his own eight-year-old national mark.
The 29-year-old Aucklander trimmed 0.02sec from his national 110m hurdles record with a time of 13.67sec to finish runnerup to Aussie Michael Lightfoot (13.65sec) on Sunday. Hawkins had set the previous record in the same Brisbane stadium eight years earlier.
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Auckland hurdler Joshua Hawkins broke his own national record at the Aussie champs on Sunday.
“I prepared really well for this, and it is nice to see the hard work I’ve put in throughout the season come to fruition,” said the hurdler who works his training around a fulltime job as a senior environment monitoring officer with Auckland Council. “I was talking to my coach (Joe Hunter) before the race and, of course, you try to win, but I was really trying to gun for that record.
“To do it in the same stadium where I set the record eight years ago – I’m just so stoked.”
Hawkins is an eight-time national 110m hurdles champion and was a world under-18 champs silver medallist back in 2011.
