If there was any question as to who the crowd was here to see last night, the sea of red Melissa Bishop shirts that took over the middle section of the Terry Fox Stadium could certainly give you an answer.
The two time Olympian did not disappoint the hometown crowd leading the women’s 800m wire to wire and finishing in a stadium record 2:00.26.
“It’s nice to run at home,” Bishop said. “I haven’t been home in a long time to run, and to have my family and my friends here, they’ve been beside me through this entire career, even before I was an Olympian. . . so it means a lot.”
Right before Bishop’s victory, her former roommate Sultana Frizell unleashed her 4kg ball out to 66.88m to claim her seventh Canadian hammer throw championship.
Despite breaking the Canadian record in the weight throw three times this winter, Frizell has struggled to hit the world championship standard of 71.00m this outdoor season.
“It has been a bit of struggle this year, but, the further I go along this year, the more consistent I get,” said Frizell. “I think it’s just going to come down to getting into a meet and let ‘er rip, really.”
The Perth native will head to Toronto this week to try and hit standard before the qualification window closes in seven days time.
Hurdler Sekou Kaba will be joining Frizell on the hunt for a world championship qualifying mark after his silver medal winning performance of 13.65 seconds in the 110m hurdles fell short of the 13.48 cut off.
“It’s been a long season of nicks slash injuries,” said Kaba. “I’m happy to be going well right around this time. There’s so much more in the tank. I just hope to get more opportunities to let it out.”
Also in the hurdles, Ashlea Maddex picked up her first nationals medal since 2014, running a personal best 13.26 seconds for bronze.
Bronze was also the medal colour for Divya Biswal in the women’s triple jump, Sharelle Samuel in the under 20 women’s 400m and Tom Nedow in the under 20 men’s shot put. It was Nedow’s second bronze of the championship.
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