Inside Athletics

A year can be a long time in athletics. A lot can happen. Just ask Mitchell Watt.

This time last year Watt leapt to prominence at the Australia Cup in Brisbane, recording a wind assisted 8.07m. He had jumped a legal 8.04m a fortnight prior at an interclub meet, but the Australia Cup was the first time the wider athletics community had a chance to see him.

Who was he and where had he come from were the questions which ran off the lips of spectators. And with such an agriculture jumping style, which could only improve with time and training under guru coach Gary Bourne, where was he going to go?

As we all now know, the answer was to a world championships bronze medal in Berlin. Just prior to the championships, after a impeccably consistent string of jumps in pre departure competitions in Australia, he became the second furthest long jumper in Australian history with a jump of 8.43m - the fifth longest in the world for 2009.

The 21 year old is the star attraction on Saturday at the opening meet of the Australian Athletics Tour in Canberra, the Australia Cup, competing in the invitation long jump. Fellow world championships finalist Fabrice Lapierre may not be in the field, but former world junior and world youth champions Robbie Crowther and Chris Noffke are, as is Victoria's Scott Crowe, who has leapt to a wind assisted 7.85m already this season.

The Australia Cup is somewhat unique in the high performance sphere of Australian athletics, as it is a team based competition. That is, athletes represent their states in their state colours and work towards amassing points for their state team, as opposed to wearing their sponsor's kit and only pursuing highly focused individual goals. On paper NSW looks to be favourite to take out the title from Queensland and Victoria, not so much because the team contains more stars than either their northern or southern neighbours, but because of their depth across all events.

There will be some interesting individual contests taking place also, none more so than in the men's and women's 400m. In the men's race world championships relay medallist Ben Offereins will relish the opportunity that some competition will provide, having already clocked a personal best of 45.53 seconds in what, with all due respect to his competitors at WA interclub, was virtually a time trial. Olympic semi-finalist Joel Milburn is also in the field, but usually takes a few races each season to approach his best form, whilst world student games relay gold medalist Chris Troode and Clay Watkins, who ran a 200m personal best of 21.13 seconds on Wednesday in Adelaide, are also expected to provide competition.

In the women's race Jody Henry has the fastest time next to her name this domestic season with a Commonwealth Games B-qualifying performance of 52.93 seconds, but a strong challenge will be put to her by Australian champion Tamsyn Lewis, whose performances over the distance have been low key training runs at Victorian shield meets. Also in the field are world championships relay representative Pirrenee Steinert and Caitlin Pincott, along with world junior relay medalists Olivia Tauro and Angeline Blackburn, who are itching to make their first senior national team.

Lewis will back up two and three quarter hours later to run the invitation 400m hurdles in which she will face Lauren Boden, who last weekend clocked a Commonwealth Games B-qualifier of 57.03 seconds.

The women's 100m will pit the fastest two athletes this season, Melissa Breen and Charlotte Van Veenendaal, together. With Breen having a strong 11.46 seconds to her name and Van Veenendaal recording a breakthrough 11.59 seconds the race will be a chance for both athletes to impress Australia's Commonwealth Games selectors as they vie for individual and relay places.

The men's dash will see the ageless Patrick Johnson start as favourite, with quarter miler Sean Wroe, junior Patrick Fakiye and former Nigerian Bola Lawal attempting to beat the Australian record holder.

Other events include the women's high jump, featuring world championships representative Petrina Price up against world youth silver medallist Amy Pejkovic, Commonwealth Games representative Ellen Pettitt and Australian all schools champion Kaitlin Morgan; the men's 800m, where Lachlan Renshaw will look to avenge his defeat by Nick Bromley at last year's national championships in their first race since then; the men's javelin where Australian champion Ben Baker will take on world junior fourth placegetter Hamish Peacock; and the men's triple jump, featuring Australian junior record holder Henry Frayne.