Inside Athletics

A Commonwealth Games A-qualifier from world championships relay medallist Ben Offereins, Australian indoor record from Ryan Foster and wins to Benita Willis and Collis Birmingham at the Australian world cross country selection trials were the highlights of the week ending 17 January.

Racing under lights at interclub in Perth, Offereins covered the lap in 45.53 seconds to win by three and a half seconds. The performance was a new personal best, improving on the 45.69 seconds he ran in June last year.

Offereins now joins John Steffensen, Sean Wroe and Joel Milburn on the list of athletes with A-qualifiers. Exciting races are expected once the 23 year old competes on the east coast of Australia, where added competition should push him to faster times.

At the same meet Liz Parnov recorded another Commonwealth Games B-qualifier in the pole vault with a jump of 4.10m, whilst Jody Henry just missed a qualifier in the 400m, running 53.07 seconds.

In the United States, Ryan Foster slashed seven tenths of a second off the five year old Australian indoor 1000m record of Mark Fountain with a run of 2:19.60. To read our interview with Foster click here.

Benita Willis and Collis Birmingham confirmed their place on Australia's team to the world cross country championships in Bydgoszcz, Polan with victories at the selection trials at Brimbank Park in Melbourne. Willis scored a four second victory over Nikki Chapple, whilst Birmingham pulled away from a pack of five men to win by seven seconds from Australian cross country champion Clint Perrett. Our event coverage is available here.

Elsewhere some solid sprinting was on show in Canberra, Brisbane at the Denise Boyd Shield and at WA interclub in Perth.

Melissa Breen clocked her second Commonwealth Games B-qualifier with a run of 11.48 seconds (+1.9 m/s) in Canberra at the Pro-Am meet [Ed: still awaiting official results, but this video of the race confirms the performance].

With Sally McLellan, Breen is expected to form the nucleus of Australia's 4x100m at the Commonwealth Games, whose chances were strengthened with a breakthrough performance from NSWs Charlotte Van Veenendaal in Brisbane, who slashed her personal best in the 100m to 11.59 seconds (+1.9 m/s). The 21 year old, who is coached by Paul Hallam, showed promise of such a time a month ago in Sydney, where she clocked 11.67 seconds in a race where the wind gauge failed.

Meanwhile, Patrick Johnson continued his solid form, shaving one hundredth of a second off his time from last week with a run of 10.35 seconds (+0.6 m/s) in Perth ahead of Lucas Mata (10.57s), whilst Matt Davies shaded 400m runner Nick Boylett in the 200m in Brisbane, 21.21 seconds to 21.25 seconds in slightly wind assisted conditions (+2.1 m/s).

The action in NSW was low key with the staging of the annual Country championships in Wollongong. The highlight performance was a 1.85m clearance by Petrina Price in the high jump. The world championships representative also took out the triple jump in 12.39m (nwi).

In AV shield competition Aaron Neighbour threw what would have been a Commonwealth Games B-qualifier in the discus if the series had the relevant permit, sending the discus 58.53m, whilst Kim Mulhall threw a solid 53.18m to take out the women's event.