Inside Athletics

A new personal best to Ben Offereins and a gutsy victory to 15 time Australian champion Tamsyn Lewis over the 400m have been the highlight performances of the Australia Cup in Canberra on a day which saw two Commonwealth Games A-qualifier and five Commonwealth Games B-qualifiers.

Offereins, relishing the opportunity of competition on the east coast after a series of strong solo performances at home in Perth, ran strongly from lane seven to slash two tenths of a second off his personal best with a run of 45.32 seconds.

"In WA I've had to run all of my races on my own, so it's just like home - getting lane seven doesn't bother me any more," Offereins said.

"It's good. It makes you run scared."

With Offereins having the proverbial runs on the board with performances so far this season, it might be his competitors who are running scared, especially as he will have the added home ground advantage at the national championships in Perth.

"It's going to be good: just like home, no travel and I've got a month before nationals to be at home and concentrate on my training and hopefully run well."

Behind him South Australia's Clay Watkins dipped under 46 seconds for the first time with a run of 45.92 seconds, whilst Beijing Olympian Joel Milburn held off Victoria's David Burke - 46.63 seconds to 46.74 seconds - for third.

The women's 400m produced encouraging signs for Australia's defence of the Commonwealth Games 4x400m title with Tamsyn Lewis needing to dig deep to cross the line for victory in 52.41 seconds, just three hundredths of a second ahead of Western Australia's Jody Henry, who clocked a personal best of 52.44 seconds. In third, Pirrenee Steinert broke 53 seconds for the first time with a run of 52.81 seconds. The performances of all three athletes were Commonwealth Games B-qualifiers.

World championships bronze medalist Mitchell Watt recorded a win with a jump of 8.13m (+1.4 m/s) but suffered foul troubles as did many others due to the strong tailwinds.

The Queenslander was happy with his start for the season and hopes to challenge the Australian record of 8.49m held by Jai Taurima. However, he did acknowledge that it would probably take world championships fourth placegetter Fabrice Lapierre in the field to drive him to the record.

"Nothing against the guys today, but I was probably a bit too relaxed. The only one here was Chris (Noffke) my training partner, but I train against him every day, so it doesn't really get my blood pumping," said Watt.

Lauren Boden clocked a near personal best in the invitation 400m hurdles - an event which Lewis decided to bypass to focus on her state duties - which also included the 4x100m - in the Australia Cup competition. Unpeturbed, Boden attacked the race and crossed the line with another Commonwealth Games B-qualifier of 56.48 seconds.

Jacinta Boyd won the long jump with a heavily wind assisted jump of 6.49m (+4.9 m/s) but did clock a legal of performance of 6.44m to better the Commonwealth Games B-qualifier.

Melissa Breen, running from lane one in the women's 100m, looked to have the field covered throughout the race, but was pipped at the post by a strong finish from Laura Whaler 11.71 to 11.74 seconds into a 2.6 m/s headwind.

Nigerian world championships representative Bola Lawal won the men's 100m in 10.46 (-1.8 m/s) whilst Keith Sheehy won the B race in 10.50 seconds (-0.8 m/s). Lachlan Renshaw and Kaila McKnight both had comfortable victories in their events - the 800m and 1500m respectively - with runs of 1:49.18 and 4:21.07.

In the field, New Zealand's Stuart Farquhar won the men's javelin with 81.11m, whilst Petrina Price prevailed in the high jump on count back from Ellen Pettitt with a jump of 1.85m.

The 5000m walk races were taken out by husband and wife team Jared and Claire Tallent, with runs of 19:08.81 and 22:22.58 respectively.

Victoria took out the Australia Cup teams competition ahead of NSW and Queensland, whilst Queensland won the Little Athletics division.