The review of last season continues ... May 2026 World Relay Championships kicks off the month of May, and Australia’s relay selectors and strategists must have had some interesting conversations prior. At some stage, they decided to try and qualify all six teams for the 2027 World Championships – but then how to balance the talent across the teams, and still get the results? Going into the championships, the only team ranked in the world top 10 was the 4x400m mixed team. And that team (Sherman, Beer, Reynolds, Gross) got things off to a cracking start with an Area Record (3:10.57) for third and qualifying through to the final. Beer's 49.52 split making her only the 3rd Australian woman with a sub-50 split. Then the men’s 4x100m (Kennedy, Azzopardi, Ius, Browning) finished third ahead of Jamaica no less, to grab a finals spot in an equal Area Record time of 37.87. A good first day, two teams qualified and two AR’s but was anyone expecting what we then saw in the men’s 4x400m? We now know Luke van Ratingen’s extraordinary starting leg of 44.51 benefitted from the fact the officials had drawn the starting line in the wrong spot, giving Australia some metres advantage. What then ensued was a fantastic race between Australia and home favourite Botswana. Australia wins in 2:57.30, but for the second time the team (van Ratingen, Holder, Hunt, Murphy) would celebrate a new Oceania record, when unbeknownst to them, the record would not count – the time in the results tagged with the rarely seen “(SD)” … short distance. So onto Day 2, the teams in the finals have WCH27 qualification, the others need to finish top 2 in their qualifying round heat. The 4x100m mixed team (Gordon, Stallan, Law, Mannix-Power) runs the same time as yesterday (40.78) to win its heat, so qualifies for WCH27. The women’s 4x400m team (Dixon, Yukich, Carli, Beer) faced some tough competition, lead at 800m and then managed to hold on for second to also qualify (3:26.92). The women’s 4x100m team (Lane, Lewis, Hanlon, Harris) carry the added pressure of having dropped in the baton on the first day, but came together to execute superbly and take the win in their heat (42.88). This meant all six Australian teams qualified through to the 2027 World Championships – the only country to achieve that feat in Botswana. In the finals the 4x400m mixed team (Sherman, Gross, Hunt, Loizou) finished 7th with 3:13.07, and the 4x100m men showed once again they were not far off the world’s best, with 4th in 38.00. The Men’s 4x400m team then provided a perfect conclusion, running splits of: Van Ratingen (44.86), Holder (43.12 – 9th fastest split world all-time), Reynolds (43.43 – fastest split in history for someone with PB over 45 secs), Murphy (43.79) for 2:55.40 AR (4th fastest country ever, 6th fastest time ever), and fastest time ever to win bronze. The new season of the Diamond League got underway. Celebrating ten years on the Diamond League circuit were Linden Hall (started May-16) and Eleanor Patterson (Jul-16) with Kurtis Marschall just a year behind (Jul-17). In Shanghai, the remarkable progression of Australia's middle-distance women is on show, with five Australians going sub-4 minutes in the 1500m in the same race. This century only three countries had achieved such a feat (and only Soviet Union and China prior to that). Shanghai also see PBs for Luke Boyes, Cara Feain-Ryan, Abbey Caldwell and Seth O’Donnell (3rd Australian sub 7:30 in the 3000m). A week later in Xiamen, Caldwell has her first DL win in the 1500m. Towards the end of the month at the Rabat DL, Nina Kennedy equals Sally Pearson’s record of 10 DL wins and Sarah Billings runs an 800m PB and achieves the Commonwealth Games qualifier on the last possible day. This month also saw the Oceania Championships in Darwin, with Aidan Murphy taking the 200m/400m double – almost breaking the 400m National Record with 44.44, and with Tom Reynolds 44.69, first time two Australians sub-45 in same race, with van Ratingen (45.04) almost making it three. Brooke Buschkuehl (6.70m) and Delta Amidzovski (6.69m) have another fascinating competition and Desleigh Owusu (13.64m) has to deal with some domestic competition in the triple jump, against Izobelle Louison-Roe (13.32m) and Tiana Boras (13.30m). In the NCAA at the Big Ten Championships, Eddie Nketia runs an incredible, very windy 9.74 (+5.6), equal 7th fastest time in the World ever, all conditions. Later in the month at Regionals he runs a wind-legal PB of 10.06 (+1.2) to qualify for Nationals, as does Hayley Kitching with a win in her 800m heat in 1:59.15. At the end of the month, Cameron Myers decides to test his speed and drops a 1:44.05 800m win in Germany, while Haftu Strintzos tests his speed over a longer distance, running the fastest half marathon seen in Australia, 60:41 in Launceston. Tough choice picking the months highlight: 🔸4x400m men, AR and 6th fastest world all-time 🔸Eddie Nketia , equal 7th fastest 100m ever, all conditions 🔸Haftu Strintzos, fastest Half Marathon in Australia 🔸The five 1500m women, all sub-4 in same race – only 3rdtime by a country this century

On reflection, some incredible Australian relay success this year 🔸 GOLD World XC Championships 🔸 BRONZE World Relays 4x4 Men, 6th fastest time ever 🔸 GOLD Comm. Games, 4x1 men 🔸 World Road 5km team, beating Kenya for SILVER Which one was your favourite?

Izzi Batt-Doyle’s fantastic new Area Record of 2:20:38 at the Chicago Marathon moves the Australian record up to 18th on the list of country records. Which one of these countries has a faster women’s marathon record?