Track Beauty of the Week: Melissa Breen

Melissa Breen is this week's Track Beauty! 

Photo from Trailpilot/Wikimedia

The 22-year old is a top-ranked Australian elite sprinter. Breen had won national titles in both the 100m and the 200m since 2009.[1] To date, her major championship curriculum vitae include stints at the Commonwealth Games, the World Championships, and most recently, the 2012 London Olympic Games.[2]

Her progression from 2007 to 2008 was particularly impressive, where the then 17-18 year old Breen shaved off 0.41s from her 100m time best (11.74s to 11.33s).[3] To date, she has personal bests of 11.27s and 23.30s in the 100m and 200m, which she both set in 2012.[4]

Breen finished 6th place in her 100m dash heat, registering a time of 11.34s in her Olympic debut.[5]

References

1. "Athlete Bio - Melissa Breen." http://melbreen.com/athlete. Retrieved 12-29-2012.
2. "Melissa Breen." http://www.iaaf.org/athletes/australia/melissa-breen. Retrieved 12-29-2012.
3. "Athlete Bio - Melissa Breen."
4. "Melissa Breen."
5. Ibid.

“Forever Alone Guy Meets His Dream Athlete”

Check out this  cool clip from LMAOfy! Featuring our favorite hurdler, Michelle Jenneke, and the Forever Alone guy.

Track Beauty of the Week: Tatiana Grigorieva Татьяна Григорьев

Tatiana Grigorieva Татьяна Григорьев is this week's Track Beauty!

As a 15-year old kid back in 2000, one of the very first athletics articles I've read was about the glamor couple of Grigorieva and Viktor Chistiakov Виктор Чистяков. Grigorieva was one of the most stunning female athletes ever to grace the sport. Hence, it is about time that she gets some air time in Track Beauty of the Week. More importantly, the Russian-born Australian was an early pole vault pioneer.

Prior to making the big shift to vaulting, Grigorieva was a talented intermediate hurdler [1]. She took up pole vaulting when the couple migrated to Australia in 1997. [2] In light of her hurdling background and natural athleticism, her improvement in the relatively new discipline took dramatic turns in her first few years. From clearing 3.90m in 1997, Grigorieva attained a new personal best of 4.50m in 1999, two years after taking up vaulting. [3]

Grigorieva won the silver medal for her adopted country at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, the first time the event was held for female athletes. Tatiana soared over 4.55m to clinch silver behind American Stacey Dragila (4.60m). In a pole vault career spanning almost 10 years, Tatiana had amassed two Australian titles (1999 and 2001), a Commonwealth Games silver (2006), and a Commonwealth Games title (2002). [4] 

References:

1. "Tatiana Grigorieva." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatiana_Grigorieva. Retrieved 10-3-2012.
2. Ibid. 
3. "Iaaf.org - Athletes - Tatiana Grigorieva." http://www.iaaf.org/athletes/biographies/letter=0/athcode=136035/index.html. Retrieved 10-3-2012.
4. "Tatiana Grigorieva."

Michelle Jenneke: The Dancing Hurdler

My college coach suggested that I take up dancing classes a few years back, to improve hip mobility. I'm not really the dancing type, so I ignored his advice! I chose hurdle drills over dancing lessons! But then again, hip mobility is imperative for efficient hurdling clearance.

Screenshot from Al-Jazeera Sport

Michelle Jenneke obviously doesn't share my dancing shyness. The Australian junior has become the latest internet sensation, thanks to a viral Youtube video of her doing a pre-race dancing jig before her qualifying heat.

Click here to view Michelle’s semifinal race

Lo and behold, this young Aussie is a hurdling gem. She topped her heat in effortless fashion, registering a time of 13.52s. She ran 13.41s in the semis, two-hundredths of second off her personal best. Jenneke’s technique is picture perfect. It is efficient. There is hardly any wasted movement. Her trail leg action, as expected, is remarkably snappy. She even clears with a bowed lead foot. Indeed, she is every inch the hurdling technician.

Michelle eventually wound up fifth in the final, stopping the clock in 13.54s.

You can see from her expression and her body language that she really loves what she is doing. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: happy hurdlers are formidable competitors. The bubbly Aussie takes the concept further by adding the dance factor, reminiscent of such classy performers like Blanka Vlasic and Chaunte Lowe.

P.S.

Netizens are calling her the new Allison Stokke. Let's just hope that this does not go overboard. 

Additional Links:

IAAF Biography

All-Athletics Profile

WJC 2012 – 100m Hurdles Results

Stephanie Rice (AUS, Swimming)

I can still vividly remember my first swimming lesson. We were made to jump into the pool and cross (by whatever way possible) to the other side. My eight-year old self chickened out. There and then I knew for a fact that I'm every inch a land lubber. Considering my childhood fears of water, I look at champion swimmers with a certain sense of respect!

Stephanie Rice is one such athlete. 

The Australian is a certified sports star. She made her major championship debut for her country at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, where as an 18-year old, she won two gold medals. A year later at the World Championships, the young rice snared two bronzes at the 200m and 400m medley.

Her Olympic debut was golden - three times over. The Brisbane-based Stephanie topped her two best events, adding a 4x200m relay freestyle gold as icing on the cake. Rice had set world records in each of her three events in Beijing. 

Source:

Stephanie's Wikipedia Profile

Track Beauty of the Week: Lauren Boden

Lauren Boden is this week's track beauty!

 

In the post-Jana Pittman years, Boden is Australia's best bet in the women's 400m hurdles. Lauren is a six-time Australian champion, a title which she first won back in 2005 as a teenager. That same year, Boden went on to compete at the World Youth Championships in Marrakech, where she won silver (58.30s), on top of her 10th (5.98m) place in the long jump. Boden ran a bit better at the World Junior Championships in Beijing the next year (58.05s), but crashed out at the semifinals.
 

Boden at the Daegu World Championships. (Photo from Zimbio/Getty Images Europe/Chris McGrath)

The one-lap hurdles specialist has a personal best of 55.25s from 2010. Boden is a 6.40m long jumper at her best, a mark she had set in Bangkok at the 2007 World University Games. According to her IAAF stat sheet, Lauren had competed in both the 400m hurdles and the long jump up until 2007, when she decided to focus on the former.

 The Australian is a two-time Commonwealth Games veteran, making her debut in 2006 at the Melbourne Games. Boden was part of the Australian 4x400m quartet that won Commonwealth Games silver in Delhi back in 2010. At the Daegu World Championships, her first major international, Boden ran a lifetime best of 55.78s in the preliminary round, but failed to advance to the final.

Lauren, who trains with 2000 Sydney Olympian Matt Beckenham, secured an early ticket to the London Olympics last February. She bettered the Olympic "A" standard of 55.50s by five-hundredths of a second, en route to her victory at the Sydney Track Classic.

Boden might be be two seconds slower than the more illustrious - and controversial - Pittman-Rawlinson, but her improvement has been gradual. Boden would have to run the race of her life in London, for her to break into the magic eight. For an athlete as focused and motivated as Lauren, the conditions are ripe for success.

Sources:

Athletics Australia

IAAF
 

Additional Links:

Athletics Australia Profile

MBD Profile

Lauren's Official Website