Denny misses medal, as Cooper and Hicking deliver big personal bests

Queenslanders Mathew Denny and Mitch Cooper placed 4th and 6th respectively in the discus, while Jack Hicking (NSW) was superb in the pole vault, setting a lifetime best to place 7th on Day 5 of the IAAF World Junior Championships in Eugene (USA).

Denny, the World Youth gold medallist from last year, threw 62.73m in the fifth round, to fall just 48cm short of a medal, but the 18 year-old was disappointed with his effort.

“It wasn’t what I wanted. I didn’t throw my best. My warm-ups were great but I just couldn’t hit it properly,” Denny said.

“It wasn’t my best championships, but I’ll learn from this and throw bigger in the future. Sometimes it doesn’t happen and you have to deal with it.”

His Australian Spark teammate Cooper had his best competition ever, producing two lifetime bests to place sixth. Cooper’s best throw of 61.77m came in the final round, after earlier opening with 61.29m.

The event was won by Martin Markovic (CRO) with a world junior leading performance of 66.94m.

In the pole vault, Hicking performed superbly, placing seventh with a lifetime best of 5.40m.

The performance was the best vault recorded by an Australian at these championships, surpassing Paul Burgess’ 5.35m from 1996 when he won gold.

The 19 year-old was elated with his performance, saying “I’m so happy with that. My goal was 5.40m and top 8 and I achieved that.”

It was a brilliant performance, 14cm over his pre-competition best and moved him to fourth on the Australian all-time junior list behind Burgess’ 5.60m from 1998.

The men’s 4 x 100m team of Josh Clarke (NSW), Jesse Usoalii (Tas), Jacob Despard (Tas) and Anthony Collum (NSW) placed 7th in the last round with a time of 40.09.

Competition concludes tomorrow with Australians in the men’s and women’s 4 x 400m final, while Cassie Purdon (Qld) goes in the final of the high jump and Anna Laman (NSW) runs the 1500m.

Full session report of Day 5 on Athletics Australia

Day 6 commences at 8.00am Monday AEST. Australians in action:

• Women’s high jump – Cassie Purdon (Qld)
• Women’s 1500m – Anna Laman (NSW)
• Women’s 4 x 400m – Emily Lawson (Vic), Georgia Wassall (NSW), Georgia Griffith (Vic), Samantha Lind (Tas)
• Men’s 4 x 400m – James Kermond (NSW), Sam Reiser (Vic), Joshua Robinson (Qld), James Kaluschke (NSW)

  With thanks to Pat Birgan