Australia takes record medal haul at world championships

Four medals on the final day, including gold and silver in the high jump, have delivered Australia not only its biggest world indoor championships haul but almost doubled its previous highest medal tally.

Champion high jumpers Nicola Olyslagers and Eleanor Patterson again vied with one another for the medals, taking out gold and silver as Olyslagers pipped Patterson for the gold on countback after both cleared 1.97 metres.

Nicola Olyslagers (right) and Eleanor Patterson took gold and silver at the world indoor championships.Credit: AP

Liam Adcock then claimed bronze in the long jump with an impressive 8.28m jump before the women’s 4x400m relay team also claimed bronze in 3:32.65, delivering Australia’s first relay medal at the event in 26 years.

Those performances delivered Australia seven medals, putting them second on the overall medal tally behind the US and sixth on the gold medal tally. Australia’s previous largest medal haul at a world indoors had been four in Toronto in 1993.

Australia was unlucky not to add to the medal tally when Georgia Griffith ran a national short track record in the 1500m final, 4:00.80, to finish fourth.

In Paris last year, Olyslagers and Patterson shared the podium with Olympic silver and bronze.

Six months later, the two women did one better in Nanjing.

Olyslagers was defending her world title after winning gold in Glasgow last year, and Patterson, who won gold at the world championships (outdoors) in Oregon, had previously won silver at the world indoors in Belgrade in 2022.

In a high-class competition, the pair both overcame Paris gold medallist Yaroslava Mahuchikh, who finished with bronze.

“When I was out there competing, we were really testing a new run-up. That’s something I learned from Yaroslava. She had the courage to try something new in an Olympic year, and that meant that I too could have the courage to do something new and big,” Olyslagers said.

“When Eleanor cleared 1.97m, it reminded me of the Australian Championships in Adelaide last year when we went head-to-head so China felt like being at home, and that too gave me courage to bring my best. I think we bring the best out of each other.”

Patterson said she would have loved to jump higher, but was proud of her performance.

“I’ve changed my run-up completely, and in a lot of ways I would have loved more consistency before competing, but I love still being able to bring out some of my best performances,” she said.

“Two metres is well within my reach again and I’m in really good form to do that this year.”

The high jump medals made for the best-ever performance by Australia at the world indoors after Lachlan Kennedy won silver in the 60m sprint and Jess Hull and Ky Robinson both won bronze in the 3000m.

“The Olympics was great, indoors is great. We’re really going places as a sport,” Olyslagers said.

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