It was a history-making weekend in sport with Australia's first world champions in the snowboard cross mixed teams and four indoor national track records broken.
Snowboard Cross – Brockhoff and Hughes Crowned World Champions
Australia won a historic World Championship gold medal in the snowboard cross mixed teams event in Idre Fjäll, Sweden.
PyeongChang 2018 Olympic silver medallist Jarryd Hughes and multiple World Cup winner Belle Brockhoff won gold in the event which will make its Olympic debut in Beijing next year
The win came 24 hours after Brockhoff fell just 70m from the line in the individual final, dropping from medal contention to finish fourth.
“Well, this is as good as it gets! We knew we could do it and we were really confident in our abilities, then we just set out a really good game plan among the two of us and maximized our strengths and I am just lucky to have had such a strong rider like Belle to be riding with,” Hughes said after stepping off the podium.
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Other Aussie winter athletes were in action across Europe, with downhill skier Greta Small finishing 28th in World Championships in Cortina and Jill Colebourn in action at the Biathlon World Championships in Slovenia this week.
Athletics Indoor Records Tumble
Aussie track runners had a record-setting weekend, with four indoor national records broken across middle distances.
Charlie Hunter broke both the indoor mile and indoor 800m national records at the University of Arkansas track meet, running 3.53.49 and 1.45.59 respectively across the two distances.
In New York, Ollie Hoare set a blistering time of 3.32.95 in the men's 1500m, to take the national indoor record from Tokyo 2020 selected athlete Stewart McSweyn.
Morgan McDonald also set a national indoor record, running 8.14.92 in the two-mile event in New York. With all three runners looking to make their Olympic debut in Tokyo, Australia’s middle distance running competition is looking fierce.
On home soil, world champion Javelin thrower Kelsey Barber, 100m sprinter Rohan browning, long jumper Brooke Stratton and hurdler Liz Clay all notched impressive wins at Canberra’s ACT Championships, with Clay setting a new PB and moving to second fastest Australian woman ever over 100m hurdles behind only Olympic champ Sally Pearson.
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Tennis – Barty leads charge as last Aussie left in main draw
World number one Ash Barty is the last remaining local hope in the Australian Open, reaching the fourth round without dropping a set.
The 24-year-old fought off a determined Dasha Gavrilova in the second round, with the win over the Rio Olympian the first time Barty had met a fellow Australian in a Grand Slam.
Barty takes on American Shelby Rogers in tonight’s fourth-round encounter.
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Shooters on target in national series
Australian shooters were in fine form, with Tokyo Olympic selected athletes Alex Hoberg, Dina Aspandiyarova, Dan Repacholi and Sergei Evglevski all notching wins at events around the country.
At the Adelaide Grand Prix, Hoberg won the 10m men’s Air Rifle gold with a world-class score of 249.3.
At the Brisbane International Shooting Centre Cup, Aspandiyarova, Evglevski and Repacholi took gold in the women’s 10m Air Pistol, 25m Rapid Fire pistol and men’s 10m Air Pistol respectively at the.
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Golf – Youth Olympic champ Grace Kim crowned Australian Amateur Champion
20-year-old Grace Kim won the Australian Amateur Golf Championship at Kooyong, with a final round 68 to win by a remarkable seven strokes.
The Sydney-based Kim added the Amateur crown to her Buenos Aires 2018 Youth Olympic Games gold medal, building an impressive list of accomplishments already in her young career.
