Australia's outstanding athletics performance at the 2021 Olympic Games

Quite simply, Maloney already has great speed to work with and only needs to improve his throws to become a gold medal chance in future global championships.

In the walks, Australia again did well in the OG with two top eight finishes.

Rhydian Cowley finished 8th in the 50km walk, albeit robbed of 7th by the Chinese walker running past him in the last few metres, while Jemima Montag also finished 6th in the Women's 20km walk.

With Australia achieving 14 top eight finishes in individual events (no relays), this was Australia's third best ever OG result behind 23 such finishes in 1956 and 16 in 1968.

In running events with three top eight finishes in individual races (800m and 1500m), this was the best result since 2000 when three of our women made the 200m and 400m finals.

In the men's running events, the last time Australia had more than one runner finish top eight was 1988 when Darren Clark finished 4th in the 400m with Steve Moneghetti and Rob de Castella finished 5th and 8th in the marathon.

On the track itself, the last time Australia had more than one top eight male finish was 1976 when Rick Mitchell finished 5th in the 400m and Graham Crouch 8th in the 1500m.

To again see Australian runners feature prominently on the world stage, along with running a few top three places at several 2021 Diamond League meetings, is a great achievement.

To conclude, for a nation where athletics does not get much public attention outside an OG year, Australia continues to produce some very good athletes.

Despite only winning three medals, dwarfed by the 21 won by our swimmers, Australia's performance in Athletics at the 2021 Tokyo OG was one of our best ever in terms of top eight finishes.

Given the 2021 OG results, it may well be that Australia is about to experience one of its best periods in terms of athletics performances for many years.

The good thing is that the 2022 World Championships in Oregon is not that far away.