Maurie Plant Meet – Melbourne

Maurie Plant Meet – Melbourne
Date	February
Location	Lakeside Stadium, Melbourne, Australia
Event type	Track and field
World Athletics Cat.	World Continental Tour Gold

The Maurie Plant Meet – Melbourne is an annual outdoor track and field meeting which takes place in February at the Lakeside Stadium in Melbourne, Australia since 2023. Last held under the old name, Melbourne Track Classic, in early March of 2016, prior to 2012 the meeting was held at the Olympic Park Stadium.

The competition was inaugurated in the late 1980s at the Olympic Stadium and gained a place on the IAAF Grand Prix circuit in its formative years.^[1] It remained on the major international outdoor track and field circuit, featuring as the opening race of the year on the IAAF World Athletics Tour from 2005 to 2009.^[2] It was the first race of the IAAF World Challenge series from 2010 through 2016.^[3] The event was also one of the foremost meets of the Australian Athletics Tour, along with the Sydney Track Classic. In 2023, the meet was upgraded and reimagined as the Maurie Plant Meet – Melbourne, held in memory of the athletics luminary as World Athletics Continental Tour Gold Level meet and part of the Chemist Warehouse Summer Series.^[4][5] Plant was known as one of the driving forces in the development and promotion of athletics in Australia. He was a meet promoter and athlete agent as well as strong supporter of the athletes.^[6] Plant was not without controversy, however, having asked heptathlete Jane Flemming to provide a substitute urine sample for the javelin thrower Sue Howland, fearing Howland would test positive to an anabolic steroid at the Ulster Games in Belfast on 30 June 1986.^[7]

The Melbourne Track Classic featured many high level performances including continental Oceanian records by Tim Forsyth in the men's high jump, Nathan Deakes in the men's 5000 metre walk, Scott Martin in the shot put,^[8] Lisa Corrigan in the mile run and Bronwyn Thompson in the women's long jump.^[9] National records have also been set at the meeting by New Zealand and Australia's athletes.

Previous Editions

Meet Records

Men

Event	Record	Athlete	Nationality	Date	Ref.
100 m	10.04	Asafa Powell	Jamaica	2008
200 m	19.92	Frankie Fredericks	Namibia	1999
400 m	44.82	Jeremy Wariner	United States	2008
800 m	1:43.15	David Rudisha	Kenya	2010
1500 m	3:32.55	William Chirchir	Kenya	2000
Mile	3:51.54	Simon Doyle	Australia	1991
3000 m	7:41.38	Ishmael Kipkurui	Kenya	23 February 2023	[10]
5000 m	13:08.43	Bernard Lagat	United States	3 March 2011	[11][12]
10,000 m	28:30.32	Joseph Kimani	Kenya	2000
110 m hurdles	13.24	Colin Jackson	Great Britain	1996
				1999
400 m hurdles	48.40	Bryan Bronson	United States	1998
3000 m steeplechase	8:19.47	John Kosgei	Kenya	2000
High jump	2.31 m	Tim Forsyth	Australia	1996
Pole vault	5.81 m	Steven Hooker	Australia	2007
Long jump	8.30 m	Peter Burge	Australia	2000
Triple jump	16.91 m (0.0 m/s)	Henry Frayne	Australia	3 March 2011	[13]
Shot put	21.37 m	Tomas Walsh	New Zealand	21 March 2015	[14]
Discus throw	66.23 m	Connor Bell	New Zealand	22 February 2023	[15]
Hammer throw	78.91 m	Stuart Rendell	Australia	2003
Javelin throw	87.13 m	Sergey Makarov	Russia	1999
5000 m walk	18:38.97	Dane Bird-Smith	Australia	5 March 2016	[16]
4 × 100 m relay	39.30	Will Roberts Jake Doran Jacob Despard Jack Hale	Australia	19 March 2022	[17]

Women

Event	Record	Athlete	Nationality	Date	Ref.
100 m	11.01	Marion Jones	United States	1998
200 m	22.54	Cathy Freeman	Australia	1993
400 m	49.85	Cathy Freeman	Australia	1996
800 m	1:59.42	Toni Hodgkinson	New Zealand	1997
		Tamsyn Lewis	Australia	2000
1500 m	4:06.23	Toni Hodgkinson	New Zealand	2000
Mile	4:22.66	Lisa Corrigan	Australia	2007
3000 m	8:43.51	Sonia O'Sullivan	Ireland	2001
5000 m	15:03.28	Sonia O'Sullivan	Ireland	1998
100 m hurdles	12.49 (+0.8 m/s)	Sally Pearson	Australia	3 March 2012	[18][19]
400 m hurdles	54.64	Jana Pittman	Australia	2003
3000 m steeplechase	9:29.93	Donna MacFarlane	Australia	2008
High jump	1.95 m	Alison Inverarity	Australia	1995
Pole vault	4.71 m	Alana Boyd	Australia	5 March 2016	[20]
Long jump	7.00 m	Bronwyn Thompson	Australia	2002
Triple jump	13.89 m (0.0 m/s)	Nneka Okpala	New Zealand	5 March 2016	[21]
Shot put	20.13 m	Valerie Adams	New Zealand	3 March 2011	[22]
Discus throw	66.10 m	Daniela Costian	Australia	1994
Hammer throw	69.31 m	Rose Loga	France	23 February 2023	[23]
Javelin throw	66.83 m	Kimberley Mickle	Australia	22 March 2014	[24]
3000 m walk (track)	11:51.26	Kerry Junna	Australia	1991
5000 m walk (track)	21:19.46	Beki Smith	Australia	5 March 2016	[25]
4 × 100 m relay	43.15	Torrie Lewis Ella Connolly Bree Masters Mia Gross	Australia	19 March 2022	[26]
4 × 400 m relay	3:32.41	Susan Andrews Kylie Hanigan Maree Holland Cathy Freeman	Australia	1993

References

This page was last edited on 28 July 2023, at 07:23