Martyn Joseph Rooney is an English sprinter who specialises in the 400 metres event. He reached the 400 m final at the 2008 Summer Olympics and won bronze in the 4×400 metres relay. A mainstay on the anchor leg of the Great Britain and England 4 x 400 metre relay teams, at the 2009 World Championships in Athletics he won a silver medal with the Great Britain relay team, and bronze in the 2015 and 2017 World Championships.
This article contains an overview of the year 1984 in the sport of athletics.
Steven Leslie Hooker OAM is an Australian former pole vaulter and Olympic gold medalist. His personal best, achieved in 2008, is 6.06 m making him the fourth-highest pole vaulter in history, behind Sergey Bubka, Renaud Lavillenie and Armand Duplantis.
Denise Margaret Robertson-Boyd is an Australian former Olympic sprinter, who reached two Olympic finals in the 200 metres sprint. The first was Montreal 1976, then Moscow 1980. She was also a member of the Australian sprint relay team, that reached the final in 1976.
Athletics is a popular sport in Australia, with around 34,000 athletes, officials and coaches currently registered with the national association.
Alana Quade is a former Australian pole vaulter and Olympian.
Vicky Parnov is an Australian athlete who competes in pole vault. She has strong athletic pedigree, being the niece of Tatiana Grigorieva, who won the silver medal for Australia in the women's pole vault at the 2000 Summer Olympics, and the granddaughter of Natalya Pechonkina, who won the bronze medal for the USSR in the women's 400m at the 1968 Summer Olympics. She is coached by her father Alex Parnov, himself a former world class pole vaulter. Her younger sister Liz also competes in Pole Vault and was the Australian national champion in 2010 before she turned 16.
Holly Bethan Bradshaw is an English track and field athlete who specialises in the pole vault. She used to be the British record holder in the event indoors and outdoors, with clearances of 4.87 metres and 4.90 metres. Bradshaw won a bronze medal at the 2020 Summer Olympics. She also won bronze at the 2012 World Indoor Championships, gold at the 2013 European Indoor Championships, bronze at the 2018 European Championships, and silver at the 2019 European Indoor Championships. She also won at the 2018 Athletics World Cup. Coached by Scott Simpson, she has been consistently ranked among the world's best and has been ranked in the world top ten on the Track and Field News merit rankings four times.
Elizaveta "Liz" Parnov is a Russian-Australian athlete who competed in the pole vault at the Olympics, World Championships and Commonwealth Games. She is also the winner of Australian Survivor: Heroes V Villains.
Melissa Breen is an Australian 100 metres and 200 metres runner. Breen broke the Australian record for the women's 100 m sprint, when she clocked 11.11 seconds at the ACT Championships, held on 9 Feb 2014 at the Australian Institute of Sport track in Canberra under ideal conditions with a 1.9 mps following wind, warm conditions and 600+ metres elevation. This broke a record previously held by Melinda Gainsford-Taylor, which had stood for more than 20 years.
Roslinda Samsu is a Malaysian pole vaulter. She is a four-time defending champion at the Southeast Asian Games, and a silver medalist at the 2006 Asian Games in Doha, Qatar. She won the bronze medal at the 2005 Asian Athletics Championships in Incheon, South Korea, but nearly missed out of the podium at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, Australia. She was also able to clear her personal best of 4.20 metres to capture the gold medal at the 2007 Asian Athletics Championships in Amman, Jordan.
Kelsie Hendry is a Canadian pole vaulter. Hendry set a historic milestone as the first-ever female athlete born in Saskatoon to represent Canada at the Olympics in athletics. She also shared her three-way triumph with teammate Carly Dockendorf, and England's Kate Dennison for the bronze medal at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi, India.
Shawnacy Campbell Barber was a Canadian track and field athlete specializing in the pole vault.
Luke Cutts is a British pole vaulter. His personal best of 5.83 m set in 2014 is the British indoor record for the event. His outdoor best of 5.70 m puts him third on the all-time British lists.
Matthew Hudson-Smith is a British track and field sprinter who specialises in the 400 metres and is the 5th fastest athlete of all-time over the distance. As of September 2024 he is ranked as the number one 400m runner in the world and has won six British titles, five Diamond League events, two individual European titles, an individual Olympic silver medal, World Championships silver and bronze individual medals and an individual Commonwealth silver medal. He has also won a number of relay titles including an Olympic bronze medal, World Championships bronze medal, two European gold medals, one European silver medal, one European bronze medal and a Commonwealth Games gold medal. Hudson-Smith also holds the European and British 4x400m records (2:55.83) along with the GB Team who ran in the final of the men's 4x400m event in the Paris 2024 Olympics.
Nina Kennedy is an Australian athlete who holds the national record in the pole vault. She won the gold medal at the 2024 Summer Olympics, 2023 World Athletics Championships and at the 2022 Commonwealth Games.
Eliza McCartney is a New Zealand track and field athlete who competes in the pole vault and won the bronze medal in this event at the 2016 Summer Olympics. She is the current New Zealand and Oceania record holder at 4.94 m, and is the outdoor world junior record holder at 4.64 m. She also won the silver medal at the Summer Universiade in 2015. In 2018, she placed second at the Commonwealth Games.
Jeffrey "Jeff" Gutteridge is an English former pole vaulter who represented Great Britain at two Summer Olympics. He was the national pole vault champion on several occasions.
Katie Byres is a British former track and field athlete who competed in the pole vault. She holds a personal best of 4.52 m for the event, set in Nevers, France on 18 February 2012. Her highest national ranking during her career was third in 2012. She also ranked 16th in the world in the 2012 indoor season. She broke the British under-20 records for pole vault, indoors and outdoors.
Imogen Ayris is a New Zealand athlete who competes in the pole vault. She won the bronze medal in the pole vault representing her country at the 2022 Commonwealth Games.
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