It’s only a small community athletics meet in Sydney’s west, but it’s managed to lure a world champion.
At the NSW Milers at The Crest Athletics Track, located in the Canterbury-Bankstown area, British middle-distance ace Jake Wightman will headline a star-studded 1500m field on Thursday night.
Wightman, the winner of the men’s 1500m at the 2022 world titles in Eugene, raced at last Thursday night’s Maurie Plant Meet in Melbourne, where he was beaten to victory in the John Landy Mile by Australian Olympic finalist Stewart McSweyn.
Earlier in the season, several key figures in Australian athletics had been hustling to get a strong 1500m field assembled for the NSW Milers. Among the names they had locked in were teen prodigy Cameron Myers, Olympian Jye Edwards, World Athletics Championships representative Matt Ramsden, 3:35.70 runner Jesse Hunt and reigning Australian 1500m champion Callum Davies.
Athletes can qualify for the Paris 2024 men’s 1500m by meeting one of two qualifying times, 3:33.50 for the 1500m or 3:50.40 for the mile, or through world rankings.
As Australian athletics agent James Templeton explained to Wide World of Sports, Wightman joined the mix for the NSW Milers after falling just short of the 3:50.40 entry standard in Melbourne.
“I spoke to his manager in Melbourne and said, ‘Hey, listen, if it’s a bit breezy, if he doesn’t get his qualifier here, look, we’ve got a race next Thursday in Sydney we’re putting on’, and within 36 hours it was confirmed,” Templeton said.
“His manager said, ‘Yep, Jake and his training partner, Thomas Keen, would love to come up and have a run’.
“I spoke to Jake and confirmed that he had pacemakers, confirmed the field: Cam, Jesse, Jye, Matt. Jake said, ‘Wow, that sounds like a great race’. He said, ‘I’m really keen to get this qualifying time out of the way. One of my aims of having races in Australia was to get the qualifying time’.”
Never in NSW Milers history has a more impressive men’s 1500m field been assembled, according to Athletics NSW president Matthew Whitbread, one of the central figures in the forming of the star-studded line-up.
He says it’s comparable with the brilliant women’s Albie Thomas Mile field that lined up at the same venue in 2019, which included Jessica Hull, Georgia Griffith, Jenny Blundell, Chloe Tighe and Keely Small.
