Old stagers show the youngsters how it’s done

Positive signs in London augur well for the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast in 2018.

Sally Pearson on her way to Australia’s only gold medal in London.

The Australian team has claimed its best medal returns in six years at the world championships in London, with the revival of veteran performers Sally Pearson and Dani Stevens.

Pearson’s gold medal and Stevens’s silver on the last two days of competition lifted Australia to a respectable equal 12th on the medal tally.

In a mostly young team, the two athletes who have been on the national team for more than a decade shone.

Pearson said after fighting her way back to the podium that she believed she had shown the younger athletes in the team how it was done at this level.

“I think they realise what they have to do to become the best in the world,’’ Pearson said.

But the medal success, which improved on the one silver and one bronze medal won at the Rio Olympics last year, did not disguise the fact that fewer athletes finished in the top eight than in Rio. Only five of the 62 athletes managed to reach that standard this year, four fewer than in Rio.

The absence of perennial medallist Jared Tallent (injured) undoubtedly hurt the bottom line but the question is where Australia’s next generation of medallists is coming from.

Stevens is 29, Pearson is 30 and Tallent is 32, so they are all getting towards the end of their careers.

Those who showed promise in London included the 20-year-old pole vaulter Kurtis Marschall, who finished seventh in his first final at this level and looks comfortable in elite company; long jumper Brooke Stratton, 24, who consolidated her seventh place in Rio with a sixth place here despite an injury-plagued preparation: and Rio bronze medallist Dane Bird-Smith, who set a personal best time in the 20km walk yesterday but finished sixth in a hot field.

Distance runner Pat Tiernan, 22, bounced back from a rough time in the 10,000m to run a fearless 5000m final, while marathoner Jess Trengove, 29, recorded her first top-10 finish (ninth).

National head coach Craig Hilliard said he was satisfied with the overall performance.

“The performances of Sally and Dani were sensational,’’ he said. “We didn’t quite get the number of top eights we were after, but we’ve got some young kids coming through. Kurtis Marschall was fantastic, some of our distance athletes like Patrick Tiernan really competed out there ... and a big breakthrough for Kelsey-Lee Roberts (to reach the javelin final).

“Dane Bird-Smith today was fantastic. You could tell he was slightly off but to come out and walk a PB you can’t ask for any more than that. Jared Tallent is not going anywhere. He’s getting over his hamstring injury. He’s not a younger athlete but he’s going to be around for Tokyo. He definitely wants to do that.”

However, some usually reliable performers fell short in London, including former silver medallist Fabrice Lapierre (11th) and regular finalist Kathryn Mitchell, who went out in qualifying.

There were also those who seemed on the edge of a breakthrough in Rio, such as 200m runner Ella Nelson (ninth in Rio) and 1500m runner Linden Hall, but have marked time this year.

Hilliard put that down to an Olympic hangover.

“That’s a typical post-Olympic year,’’ he said.

“We’ve seen a number of athletes here (from other countries) who were expected to win gold and they didn’t. It’s never going to be a linear progression for some athletes.”

Athletics Australia took the opportunity to send a large team to London in preparation for next year’s Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast.

Hilliard said he expected Australia’s field athletes and distance runners to make more of an impact in that environment.

Thirteen of those who won world titles in London come from Commonwealth countries, so in some events the competition will be truly world-class.