Australia’s new track and field golden age lights up the Maurie Plant Meet

It was a Maurie Plant Meet unlike no other on Saturday night with more than 9,000 fans packing Lakeside Stadium for another edition of the time-honoured track and field event.

First held in 1980 under its previous name, Melbourne Track Classic, the Maurie Plant Meet has gone from strength to strength since it was revamped in 2023, thanks to support from the Victorian Government.

Highlighted by the blockbuster Peter Norman Men’s 200 metre showdown between Gout Gout and Lachlan Kennedy, the night featured 20-finals across a packed schedule, from the women’s javelin to the Men’s John Landy 1500 metres.

Kennedy took out the sprint race ahead of his main local rival, while Botswanan Olympic gold medalist Letsile Tebogo was upstaged by his fellow countryman Bayapo Ndori in the men’s 400 metres.

Olympic high jump bronze medalist and Gippsland-born athlete Eleanor Patterson returned home for the meet, flying straight from her silver medal winning performance in Beijing to Melbourne to compete in front of friends and family.

'It means so much. Every time I'm able to come through and be able to spend time in Leongatha and Melbourne. I now primarily live overseas in Italy and so I don't get a chance to come back here often.

'It's really special. Australians are huge sports fans and so it's just incredible to see that’s athletics is slowly getting a little bit more notoriety.'

Aiming for a jump of more than two metres, she fell just short, still claiming gold with a final height of 1.94 metres.

Another Victorian local Linden Hall finished third in the women’s 1500 metre race and continues to be amazed at how the Maurie Plant Meet and athletics has grown in Australia.

'To have such great crowds here and family and friends, so many junior athletes coming out to watch definitely brings out the most in our performance.

'The first year they revamped the meet there were crowds lining up to get in, which was something I hadn't seen at an athletics meet in Australia in my career, which is really special.'

The Maurie Plant Meet remains the only World Athletics Continental Tour Gold meet in Australia, which is the second highest rating for an athletics event behind the Diamond League, helping attract some top international athletes to Melbourne

Linden believes there is an appetite for her rivals from around the world to visit Australia despite the distance.

'It's a long way to come for most of them, but trying to make that enticing and maybe it's a package and a training camp for some of our international competitors.'

For Eleanor, the thrill of being part of this golden age of Australian track and field is so rewarding.

'They're all such incredible athletes, and so it really means so much to me that we're able to have Australia take on the world and we're really stamping our name in the record books and the history books.'

The Maurie Plant Meet has helped kicked off a big month of athletics with the annual Stawell Gift just around the corner from 19-21 April at Central Park in Stawell.

The Victorian Government supported the Maurie Plant Meet through the Significant Sporting Events Program.

The Program helps organisations deliver national and international sporting events across Victoria.

Since the Program’s inception in 2010, it has secured more than 1,050 events for Victoria, keeping local businesses busy, hotels and shopping strips bustling and our economy strong.