Jess Hull and Kurtis Marschall have won bronze medals at the world athletics indoor championships on another successful day for the Australian team in Poland.
Hull’s bronze sets up the prospect of a rare double medal weekend after she accidentally pushed over the race favourite en route to finishing third in a rough-and-tumble 3,000m in Torun on Saturday.
Pole vaulter Marschall then cleared six metres for the first time in a championship as he earned his third global bronze behind the untouchable Armand Duplantis, who made it four titles in a row.
With Nicola Olyslagers winning high jump silver on the opening day, the 11-strong Australia team will hope Hull can finish with a flourish on Sunday as she guns for a second medal in her Olympic silver-winning distance of 1,500m.
“I am just proud to add another medal to my collection. If there’s a race for medals anywhere in the world, I will be there!” Hull said.
She said she would “go get some sleep and go through the whole routine again” in her best event.
Hull inadvertently helped her own cause midway through a messy 15-lap race by pushing over Ethiopia’s Freweyni Hailu while trying to keep her own balance after being shoved from behind herself.
With the field having been cramped by the slow early pace, Spain’s Marta Garcia was later disqualified for her clumsy push on Hull, while defending champ Hailu worked wonders to get back up and finish sixth.
Having been slightly hampered herself, Hull decided to attack from two laps out, leading at the bell but eventually being pipped by Italy’s fast-finishing Nadia Battocletti who struck gold in 8min 57.64sec ahead of American Emily Mackay (8min 58.12sec) who just edged Hull (8min 58.18sec).
“I made my move with 400 to go and I wasn’t sure if it would be enough,” Hull said.
“I am still learning these things – outdoors and indoors are two different sports for me, and you have to more tactically aware indoors.”
Adelaide’s Marschall cleared 6.00m for the first time only last month in Clement-Ferrand, becoming the fourth Australian to join that elusive club, and repeated the feat in championship conditions on Saturday.
But nothing could stop his occasional training partner Duplantis from continuing his domination as not even a 6.05m effort from the Greek silver medalist Emmanouil Karalis could get near his championship record 6.25m.
The only disappointment for the crowd was that the Swede didn’t then try to improve on the 6.31m world record – his 15th – that he’d set in Uppsala nine days earlier.
Peter Bol and Hayley Kitching also have their eyes on a first world championship medal on the final day on Sunday, having earned impressive 800m semi-final wins.
Bol, battling back to the top of the sport at 32 after being cleared over an anti-doping investigation that derailed him at the height of his career three years ago, won his semi in 1min 46.21sec.
“The goal is always to win the gold, so I am looking forward to the final,” he said.
In the women’s 800m, Kitching, the Penn State University runner from Coffs Harbour, made her first global final by winning her semi in 2:00.06. “I cannot believe I did it at my first world indoors,” the 21-year-old said.