Rating Australia’s performance, Gout Gout in the 200m, Torrie Lewis, Jess Hull, Nicola Olyslagers

The upshot was that Australia’s team was depleted, finishing 15th on the medal table. In comparison, New Zealand finished fifth with two gold and a bronze.

Loading

And yet, with relay teams qualifying, Australian athletics was still able to boast of taking its largest ever team – 88 athletes – to a world championships.

The big winners

Clearly, the medallists in Tokyo all excelled. Olyslagers put in an A+ performance to win a first outdoors gold. Kurtis Marschall was competing against Mondo Duplantis, the greatest ever pole vaulter, so in reality he was really only competing for two places and he got one with his bronze medal. Mackenzie Little even getting to the level to compete while working full-time as an ER doctor is worth a medal. That she then won a javelin bronze was a tremendous effort.

The relay teams bungled multiple handovers. While Australia has invested time in the relay teams in the past year, they clearly need to spend a bit more time on baton handovers. With the new generation of sprinters emerging, this is where they can pick up more medals. But not with handovers like that.

Australia’s biggest successes of the championships were not medals at all. Gout Gout delivered an A-grade performance.

The 17-year-old came to Tokyo with the weight of expectation and the curious eyes of the world on him – and delivered. He enjoyed the exposure to the level, carried the pressure and ran well to make a semi-final. Just getting out of the heats against bigger, more experienced runners is outrageously good for his age.

Torrie Lewis, too, didn’t win a medal and was dirty on herself for not making the 200m final despite running one of the quickest 200ms by an Australian woman. No one else figured her effort disappointing.

Jess Hull just delivers. A silver medallist in Paris, she won bronze in Tokyo in the 1500m in one of the most competitive events at the worlds. She backed that up by breaking a national record on her way to an 800m final.

Matthew Denny had weather as an alibi for a night he will have felt a chance at a medal slipped through his fingers like a wet discus.

A bronze medallist in Paris, Denny was the last athlete to attempt to throw, and slipped and fell before the competition was suspended because of the heavy rain. There were few good throws on the night – only Swedish gold medallist Daniel Stahl cleared 70m. Denny has been regularly clearing 70m all year but in these conditions that was unlikely, and he finished fourth at a world championships for the third time.

Gout and the next-level excitement and interest he generates – TV ratings outstripping the AFL semi-finals – and to an extent Lewis and Hull, partly obscured the lacklustre performances of others on the Australian team.

The disappointments

Loading

Of the 88 Australian athletes in Tokyo, more than 40 performed below the level they were required to hit to qualify for the championships. That is poor.

Some such as 800m runner Luke Boyes, steeplechaser Ed Trippas and walker Rhydian Cowley turned up having not raced because of injury or still carrying injuries, and plainly not fit enough to seriously compete. Sprinter Bree Rizzo discovered she had had long COVID, which affected her preparation. Hurdler Liz Clay hurt her foot in June and struggled in her preparation.

Australia used to have fitness tests in the lead-in to major events for athletes to show they were fit and still performing at the level they had displayed to qualify. It is difficult because Australia’s domestic season is out of kilter with the rest of the world’s, so athletes are asked to peak more often and stay up for longer.

Loading

“On the back of last year’s performances, it might, on face value, seem like it’s a drop away,” Athletics Australia head coach Andrew Faichney said.

“But we had three medallists or three medals not here as well. So all in all, I think it’s been a really successful championships. We’ve had a number of our juniors that have been able to come through, and so I think year one in an Olympic cycle is looking very good.”

Four medals here and one of them gold, given no Kennedy or Montag is a solid pass mark for Australia.

News, results and expert analysis from the weekend of sport are sent every Monday. Sign up for our Sport newsletter.