KUALA LUMPUR – Australia is set to send its largest team of track and field athletes to an overseas Olympics, with a 75-strong squad heading to Paris later this month, said Chef de Mission Anna Meares in a statement.
This addition brings the total Australian delegation to 460 competitors, making it the second largest in the nation’s history for any Olympics, trailing only the 2000 Sydney Games.
The current delegation is just 16 athletes fewer than the team that represented Australia in 2000, when the country clinched 17 gold medals.
“The athletics team is the largest of any sport and they will contribute greatly to the positive environment of the broader team,” said Meares.
“Today’s announcement finalises our Australian Olympic team at 460 athletes. I am so excited for Australians to see this team represent them with pride and determination in under three weeks’ time.”
World champion pole vaulter Nina Kennedy and two Tokyo bronze medallists, decathlete Ash Moloney and javelin thrower Kelsey-Lee Barber, will headline the track and field squad.
Barber will be part of a three-strong entry for the women’s javelin with Mackenzie Little, who won bronze at last year’s world championships, and 41-year-old Kathryn Mitchell, who will compete in her fourth Olympics.
Australia will also send men’s and women’s 4x100m relay squads to Paris for the first time since the Sydney Games. The team will compete in 39 out of the 48 athletics events.
The women’s sprint relay team will feature Torrie Lewis, the teenager who recently beat Sha’Carri Richardson and a strong field to win the 200m in her Diamond League debut in Xiamen. – July 8, 2024