2025: a year Australian athletics reaches new heights
Angus Barnes | Jan 14, 2026
By any measure, 2025 was an extraordinary year for Australian athletics. We review some of the key results and records set.
Global Championships
Australians won 12 Global medals, with Australia's best World Indoor Championships ever (7 medals), equal second best World Championships (4 medals) and the first World Relays medal in the new 'qualification' format.
The World Indoors for Australia had the most number of athletes finishing in the top 8 (9) and the top 16 (15) while the World Championships also saw the most number of athletes (28) finishing in the top 16.
World Indoors
GOLD Nicola Olyslagers High Jump
SILVER Eleanor Patterson High Jump, Lachlan Kennedy 60m
BRONZE Ky Robinson 3000m, Jessica Hull 3000m, 4x400m women (Beer, Connolly, Pasquali, Pollard)
World Relays
SILVER 4x400m mixed (Van Ratingen, Beer, Thorne, Bull)
World Championships
GOLD Nicola Olyslagers High Jump
BRONZE Kurtis Marschall Pole Vault, Jessica Hull 1500m, Mackenzie Little Javelin,
Adding more Global medals this year takes these athletes into the upper echelons of Australian athletics history:
- Nicola Olyslagers moves to equal #4 Australian on the career Global medals list, with six medals, equal with Cathy Freeman
- Eleanor Patterson equal #6 with five,
- Jessica Hull equal #8 with four.
Rhydian Cowley made his sixth appearance at the World Championships, equalling the record of Steve Moneghetti & Jared Talent. A number made their fifth appearance: Rohan Browning, Peter Bol, Brandon Starc, Linden Hall, Michelle Jenneke and Nicola Olyslagers.
National Records
Australian athetes broke 32 national senior records, including 4 indoor records and 4 World Junior records. Look how the year unfolded, Australian records falling every month up to October, and then a couple more in December.
25-Jan 60m Lachlan Kennedy 6.43
29-Jan 60m Torrie Lewis 7.14
2-Feb Half Marathon Isobel Batt-Doyle 1:07:17
8-Feb 3000m Ky Robinson 7:30.38 (i)
8-Feb Mile Cameron Myers 3:47.48* =NR (i)
21-Feb 5000m Jack Rayner 12:59.43 (i)
6-Mar 1000m Georgia Griffith 2:34.50
15-Mar 4x100m Australia men 37.87
16-Mar 35km Walk Rhydian Cowley 2:25:21
16-Mar 35km Walk Olivia Sandery 2:42:40
23-Mar 1500m Georgia Griffith 4:00.80 (i)
6-Apr Discus Matthew Denny 72.07
10-Apr Discus Matthew Denny 74.25
13-Apr Discus Matthew Denny 74.78
26-Apr 5000m Rose Davies 14:40.43
26-Apr 1000m Abbey Caldwell 2:32.94
3-May 10km (road) Isobel Batt-Doyle 30:44
10-May 4x100m Australia mixed 41.15
11-May 4x400m Australia mixed 3:12.20
11-Jun 10000m Rose Davies 30:34.11
24-Jun 200m Gout Gout 20.02
11-Jul 800m Peter Bol 1:42.55
11-Jul 1000m Jessica Hull 2:30.96
19-Jul 5000m Rose Davies 14:31.45
19-Jul Mile Jessica Hull 4:13.68
9-Aug 3000m SC Ed Trippas 8:13.15
16-Aug 800m Claudia Hollingsworth 1:57.67
27-Aug High Jump Nicola Olyslagers 2.04
13-Sep 100m Torrie Lewis 11.08
19-Sep 800m Jessica Hull 1:57.15
7-Dec Marathon Jessica Stenson 2:21:24
11-Dec 10,000m Walk Isaac Beacroft 38:02.68*
*Beacroft's and Myer's times were also World U20 Records. Myers mile time was an overall & indoor WU20R as well as a 1500m indoor WU20R en route.
Worth noting Denny's 74.25 missed the world record by 10cm, and the 74.78 went over, but Mykolas Alekna had already thrown further in the same competition.
Denny's final record was a 6.9% improvement on the record at the start of the year (69.96), the biggest leap. Olivia Sandery improved the 35km RW record by 2.9%, the Australian mixed 4x400m relay team (Van Ratinge, Beer, Thorne, Bull) by 2.4%, and Jessica Hull the 1000m by 2.3%.
Other points of note:
Ed Trippas breaks one of the oldest track records on the books, taking 3.07 seconds off Shaun Creighton's 32-year-old 3000m steeplechase record.
Izzi Batt-Doyle's half marathon record broke Kerryn McCann's 25-year-old record.
Another long standing record to go was Craig Mottram's 17-year-old indoor 3000m record, broken by Ky Robinson.
Rose Davies' two new long distance records also broke the long standing (16 years) Oceania records of Kim Smith (NZ).
Jessica Hull continued her record breaking ways (every year since 2020) extending down into the shorter middle distances which means she currently holds all six outdoor national records from 800 to 2000m.
Georgia Griffith broke her second Jessica Hull record, something of a distinction in this era, with the 1500m indoor record (adding to her 3000m NR) and finished a close second to Rose Davies in her 5000m record run, becoming second Australian woman under 14:40 in the 5000m.
Diamond League
It was the busiest year ever seen in terms of Australian athletes competing in the Diamond League. Overall 42 athletes competed (a record), with 26 of them scoring a total of 305 points (another record).
Come the finals, Australia had eleven athletes compete, which equalled the record compared with similar finals format back to 2017. In the final a record equalling four top 3 finishes and a record eight top 4 finishes which were:
DL CHAMPION Nicola Olyslagers High Jump
SECOND Jessica Hull 1500m
THIRD Linden Hall 1500m, Liam Adcock Long Jump
FOURTH Kurtis Marschall Pole Vault, Matthew Denny Discus, Mackenzie Little Javelin, Georgia Griffith 3000m
World Athletics Awards
Nicola Olyslagers becomes only the second Australian, after Sally Pearson, to receive a World Athletics Award, winning women's field athlete of the year, given her domination in the high jump.
Grand Slam Track
The year saw the emergence of a new league in athletics with Grand Slam Track. Jessica Hull was the only Australia invited as a 'Racer' for the short distance category (800m/1500m), in a format where four racers met four challengers over two different distances each meet. Over the three meets, Hull finished 4th overall in Kingston, 5th in Miami and 2nd in Philadelphia.
Other Australians were invited as Challengers to various meets:
Peter Bol (800m/1500m) Miami 5th overall
Sarah Carli (400m/400mH) Miami 6th overall
Abbey Caldwell (800m/1500m) Philadelphia 4th overall
Ky Robinson (3000m) Philadelphia 3rd
Sadly it looks as if this may be the only year for Grand Slam Track, but World Athletics took up the innovation challenge and introduced a new event for 2026, the World Ultimate Championships.
World University Games
Another opportunity for Australia's younger athletes to particpate on the world stage, and another outstanding result for those competing, with a large number achieving personal bests. In terms of medals a record collection again, most number of total medals (10) and most number of golds (5)
GOLD Georgia Harris (100m), Elizabeth McMillen (20km RW), Benjamin Guse (Decathlon), Connor Murphy (Triple Jump), Womens 4x100m relay (Harris, Kristie Edwards, Olivia Rose Inkster, Jessica Milat)
SILVER 20km RW team (both mens & womens)
BRONZE Desleigh Owusu (Triple Jump), Emelia Surch (Heptathlon), Roman Anastasios (High Jump)
Australia had never medalled in the triple jump at these championships, in which Australia first competed in 1937, so it was great to see double success.
What a year!
A fantastic year for Australian athletes, but this is not in isolation, with momentum building since the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. Expectations are raised that this will continue into 2026, and only more so after the 4x2km cross country relay team (Oliver Hoare, Linden Hall, Jack Anstey, Jessica Hull) became the first world champions for the year.
Expect an exciting Summer Series of athletics over the next few months, with meets in Perth, Hobart, Adelaide and Melbourne, as well as the Short Course Nationals in Melbourne, culminating in the National Championships on the newly resurfaced track in Sydney. Then Darwin hosts the Oceania Championships in May.
Internationally we've got World Indoor Championships in March, World Relays in May and the Diamond League action starts building from the Chinese meets in May. A major focus for athletes will be trying to gain selection for the Commonwealth Games in July, but some will also be trying to qualify for the Diamond League finals in early September. For those highly world-ranked athletes, the World Ultimate Championships take place a week later. In late September a change of surface takes us to the World Road Championships.
That's a huge year gone and another huge year to come .. and at TrackAthletes we'll be doing our best to keep up you up-to-date.
Details for all these coming meets are on our website and you can add meets, as well as athletes, to your watchlist. Our Stats page lists the National Records and will shortly start listing the National Leads for 2026.
Tune in!