Australia capped an outstanding week of athletics at Jawaharlal Nehru Sports Complex in Delhi with a hat-trick of gold medals to Alana Boyd (pole vault), Jarrod Bannister (javelin throw) and the men’s 4x400m relay team.

The 4x400m team celebrating the hat-trick with a mock cricket game much to the delight of the Indian crowd.

The gold medallists were joined on the last night of in-stadium athletics at the XIX Commonwealth Games by Amanda Bisk (sixth – pole vault), Liz Parnov (11th – pole vault), Eloise Wellings (fifth – 5000m), Jeremy Roff (seventh – 1500m), Mitch Kealey (11th – 1500m) and Australia’s men’s 4x100m relay team (fourth) and women’s 4x400m relay team (fifth).

In the final event on tonight’s program the men’s one-lap relay team of Joel Milburn, Kevin Moore, Brendan Cole and Sean Wroe (running order) successfully defended Australia’s 2006 Commonwealth Games crown, taking victory in a time of 3:03.30.

The win marks the first time Australia has taken out consecutive men’s 4x400m relays at the Commonwealth Games.

“It was pretty phenomenal, these boys set it up for me so I had a pretty cruisy, comfortable race,” Wroe said. “I made sure I had plenty of petrol left in case the Kenyans or the Bahamas or the English athlete came at me and we crossed that line and defended our Commonwealth Games title and you can’t ask for anything else.

“We were always confident, last year we came away with the bronze at the world titles which is a tougher competition than this but in saying that, we‘re only missing America (of the three world titles medallists).”

Showing the remarkable depth of men’s 400m running in Australia, Wroe is the only one of the four athletes in action on the track tonight to have featured in the bronze medal-winning final at last year’s IAAF world championships in Berlin (GER).

In the field, Jarrod Bannister claimed his first major international gold medal with victory in the men’s javelin throw.

Bannister hit the winning mark of 81.71m in Round 3 of competition and held on take victory over Kiwi rival Stuart Farquhar, who claimed silver with a best effort of 78.15m.

In a true show of tenacity, 26-year-old Bannister took to the field with the aid of two pain-killing injections to treat a back injury that threatened to overturn his Commonwealth campaign.

"I had a back injury coming into this so I was in a fair bit of pain through the whole comp and I'm just happy with the result,” he said. "I was throwing the best I've ever thrown my whole life until I hurt my back and then to have it on ice for two weeks and be worried about whether I would be able to throw tonight was pretty upsetting but I got the result I wanted, which was good.”

Bannister is the first Australian to take Commonwealth Games gold in the event since Alf Mitchell claimed victory in 1962.

Also in the field, Alana Boyd won gold in the women’s pole vault on a countback from Cypriot Marianna Zachariadi.

The 26-year-old Western Australian-based athlete taking victory with a season-best clearance of 4.40m and securing a piece of Australian athletics history in the process.

The win sees Boyd join parents Ray (pole vault, 1982) and Denise (200m, 1978) as an individual Commonwealth Games title-holder, the first time the feat has been achieved by the son or daughter of a gold medal-winning couple in Australian history.

Stringing together a near-perfect series, Boyd required just one attempt to clear heights of 4.10m, 4.25m and 4.40m before missing all three attempts at 4.55m.

“It’s pretty amazing, the goal was to come away with the gold and I’ve done that so I couldn’t be happier,” Boyd said.

“It didn’t quite transfer into the height I wanted but I did what I had to do, I cleared first attempts and I won on a countback.”

Boyd’s win is the fourth consecutive victory in the event for Australia. The newly-crowned Commonwealth champion was joined in tonight’s final by Amanda Bisk in sixth place (4.25m) and 16-year-old Liz Parnov, 11th with a clearance of 4.10m.

 Rising star Parnov, the youngest member of the Australian Team, will also use tonight’s experience to her advantage as she continues her transition into the senior ranks.

“To come all the way over here and not perform at your best is hard but I’ve had a really long season and I jumped a PB, I came second at the Youth Olympics so I should really be happy and learn from this experience,” Parnov said.

In other results, Australia’s men’s 4x100m relay team of Aaron Rouge-Serret, Issac Ntiamoah, Jacob Groth and Matt Davies just missed out on a medal, crossing the line fourth in a time of 39.14 behind a victorious English outfit in 38.74.

On a big night of relay action for Australia Sally Pearson made a rare appearance over 400m on the back of a hectic week of racing at the Jawaharlal Nehru track, the 100m finalist and 100m hurdles gold medallist anchoring the women’s 4x400m team to fifth place in a time of 3:30.29 behind India (3:27.77).

Pearson was joined in the final by relay specialists Jody Henry, Pirrenee Steinert and Olivia Tauro.

Just days after placing sixth in the final of the 10,000m, Eloise Wellings tonight went one better in the final of the 5000m event, crossing the line in fifth place in a time of 16:11.97 behind race winner Vivian Cheruiyot of Kenya (15:55.12).

Rounding out tonight’s action, Jeremy Roff placed seventh in the final of the men’s 1500m in a time of 3:43.53, just ahead of countryman Mitch Kealey in 11th position in 3:44.57.

At the end of seven days of hard-fought track and field competition and with 11 gold, five silver and two bronze medals on the board, team coach Eric Hollingsworth said that while the final medal tally was set to fall short of the 2006 Games, the high percentage of gold medals won was a credit to the Australian Team.

“Our champions stepped up and we’ve certainly got some others who have moved up to the next rank. People like Benn Harradine (gold – discus throw), who’s now a contender for worlds and Olympics with 65m-plus. That’s what it’s all about and we’ve really stretched the bar this meet," he said.

“The medal count was adjusted after a few big-name withdrawals and we were hoping for as close to 25 as we could, it looks like after the marathons we’ll get 21, 22 possibly but the pleasing thing is the conversion to gold.”

All eyes now turn to Thursday’s men’s and women’s marathons where Martin Dent, Jeff Hunt, Michael Shelley, Lisa Flint and Lisa Weightman will tackle the stifling conditions.

Athletics Australia