Australia's outstanding athletics performance at the 2021 Olympic Games

In the women's long jump, Brooke Stratton finished seventh with her 6.83m final jump, her second top eight finish at the OG after finishing seventh in 2016.

In the pole vault, Kurtis Marschall qualified for the final with 5.75m but unfortunately no heighted.

In the throws, while Australia's women won their third ever OG throwing medal with a bronze in the javelin, it was great to see Matthew Denny achieve Australia's best ever OG male throwing performance by finishing fourth with a PB of 67.02m.

Denny finished just 5cm behind third and less than 2m from the winning distance of 68.90 to show that Australian males too can compete well at the highest global level in events that do require great technique and considerable strength.

In the javelin, Australia's women uphold recent 2019 world championship success by achieving three of the top eight competitors, an unprecedented achievement by Australia in any field event.

The 2019 world champion Kelsey-Lee Barber won the OG bronze medal with a SB of 64.56m, Kathryn Mitchell finished sixth with 61.82m, and Mackenzie Little finished eight with 59.96m.

In this era with so many countries participating in every track and field event, it is simply stunning that Australia can achieved such a feat.

We have to go back to the 1950s to recall the only three times that Australia had three top eight finishes in any event, that being the 1952 female 100m and the 1956 female 200m and 80m hurdles at a time when only six athletes qualified for sprint distance finals.

In the decathlon, track and field's all-round test for males, Ashley Moloney was brilliant winning Australia's first ever medal in that event with an Australian record of 8649.

Australia's previous best decathlon result was 6th by Peter Mullins in 1948 behind the 17-year-old gold medal winner Bob Mathias who also won the 1952 OG.

Maloney joins Glynnis Nunn (the 1984 OG heptathlon gold medal winner) as the only Australians to medal in the two all-round events.

Moloney had many great performances in the ten events of the decathlon: 100m 10.34, long jump 7.64m, shot put 14.49m, high jump 2.11m, 400m 46.29, 110m hurdles 14.08, discus 44.38, pole vault 5.00m, javelin 57.12m and 1500m 4:39.19.