Australia finishes record medal haul at world indoor athletics titles

Four medals — including gold — on the final day of competition in China left Australia second only to the US’s tally.

High jump gold medallist Nicola Olyslagers in Nanjing. Picture: Getty Images

Australia has scored its most successful world indoor athletics championships, winning four medals on the final day of competition in Nanjing, China, to amass seven medals in total and finish second in overall medals to the US.

Australia won gold, silver and two bronzes on Sunday, with high jumping stars Nicola Olyslagers and Eleanor Patterson winning gold and silver, both clearing 1.97m.

That was followed by a superb bronze medal by long jumper Liam Adcock who overcome recent hamstring injuries and soared to 8.28m and his first international medal.

He was just two centimetres off the winner, Mattia Furlani, and one centimetre off second place, won by Jamaica’s Wayne Pinnock in the tightly fought contest.

“I opened conservative with the new format where athletes get knocked off every few jumps but I was able to put out a decent series and had a lot of fun doing it,” said Adcock, whose first two jumps were his best.

Ollears the bar. Picture: AFP

“It was the first indoor competition ever for me, and the second time I’ve run on an indoor track. The hard track benefits me, but I have this problem with expectation.

“I thought I could have won it but I was still stoked to see the Australian flag. It was a surreal moment really when I thought about retiring from the sport six months ago.”

Eleanor Patterson and Olyslagers after their event. Picture: AFP

The world indoors ended with the women’s 4x400m relay event, where Australian Olympians Ellie Beer and Ella Connolly joined with rookies Bella Pasquali and Jemma Pollard to collect the bronze medal in a time of 3min 32.65sec.

Earlier in the competition 21-year-old Lachlan Kennedy won silver in the men’s 60m, and Australia’s distance runners Ky Robinson, a Queenslander based in the US, and Jess Hull both collected bronze in 3000m races.

At the end of competition Australia finished sixth on the gold medal tally and recorded the second-highest overall medal count behind US’s 16 medals.