Aussie ace trumps world champ, teen smashes record

Stewart McSweyn got a glimpse of a lurking Jake Wightman and had one thought.

"Once he got on my shoulder I was like, 'Can't let a guy come to our home track and beat us'," said the plucky distance runner from Tasmania's King Island.

McSweyn conquered a world-class field in the John Landy Mile at Melbourne's Maurie Plant Meet on Thursday night, taking the win in three minutes and 52 seconds (3:52.00).

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Wightman, a world champion, finished just 0.11 of a second behind, clocking 3:52.11, and Cameron Myers grabbed third in 3:52.44.

It marked yet another Australian junior record for the 17-year-old, who smashed his own under-20 record by exactly three seconds.

At last year's Maurie Plant Meet, the rising star from the ACT cranked out a 3:55.44 to become the fastest-ever 16-year-old worldwide.

When pacemaker Connor Whiteley veered off the track with about 600 metres remaining on Thursday night, McSweyn led Wightman, Scotland's 2022 world champion over 1500m, Myers and several others hanging on.

Wightman was desperate to edge ahead of McSweyn at the top of the home straight, but the Australian Olympian denied his finishing kick.

"Obviously I probably didn't want to lead that far out," McSweyn said.

"There was a fair bit of headwind coming in that front straight. I just had to hold back, hold back. I knew Jake would come ... I had to run tough that last 100 metres."

Wightman has had a terrible injury run since becoming a world champion in July 2022. The John Landy Mile was just his second race since January 2023, after he made his comeback in an indoor 3000m race in England last month.

McSweyn was the winner of a field that also included Australian Olympian Jye Edwards and Kiwi Olympian Sam Tanner.

In the women's 800m at the Maurie Plant Meet, 18-year-old Claudia Hollingsworth pulled off a shock victory by taking down the two fastest women in Australian history, Catriona Bisset and Abbey Caldwell.

Shattering the two-minute barrier for the first time, the Melbourne athlete posted 1:59.81 to break Keely Small's Australian women's under-20 record.https://twitter.com/AthsAust/status/1758058105924149365

In the women's 5000m, Rose Davies won a thrilling race and broke Irishwoman Sonia O'Sullivan's meet record of 15:03.28, set in 1998.

Davies, who hails from Newcastle, clocked 14:57.54 as she outdid fellow Tokyo Olympian Izzi Batt-Doyle in a tense final-lap battle. Davies and Adelaide's Batt-Doyle (14:59.18) became the fourth and fifth Australian women in history to shatter the 15-minute mark.

Meanwhile, Rohan Browning took victory in the men's 100m and 200m, running 10.34 seconds (-0.9 wind) and 20.80 (-1.5).