Aussies emerge as genuine threats at Paris Olympics as young gun beats Peter Bol’s national record

Australian middle distance star Joseph Deng has announced himself a genuine medal threat for the Paris Olympics by breaking the Australian 800m record set by superstar Peter Bol.

The training partner of Commonwealth Games gold medal winner Bol posted a 1:43.99 runaway win in the upcoming Olympic city of Paris – which is officially the second fastest time in the world this year.

The run puts him and Australia right in the frame for a gold medal over 800m at the upcoming World Track and Field Titles starting August 19.

Australia now also has a genuine shot at winning both gold and silver over the two-lap gut-wrenching 800m race with Bol and Deng to push the global field.

Joe Deng has had some horror injuries over the past few seasons but in France broke the Australian 800m record and now looks to win gold for Australia in the upcoming World Titles

Deng’s training partner Peter Bol, the former Aussie 800m record holder and current Commonwealth Games silver medallist is also back in PB form heading to Budapest for the World Championships

The Kenyan-born Aussie Deng, who has been in Australia since 2004, reserves his best front-running displays in Europe as seen here winning in England

Deng exploded to the front early in France over 800m a few days ago and just kept going destroying a world class field and becoming the first Australian man in history to run under 1:44 for 800m. 

He is now ranked No 2 in the world and in front of his highly regarded superstar training partner Bol who himself ran a personal best (PB) in France that day but in the 1500m.

The 1500m of Bol (3:34.52) gives Australia an undeniable and unique chance of taking gold and silver in the upcoming Budapest World Track and Field Championships starting August 19.

Aussies tuning up for Paris Olympics 

800m champion Peter Bol is ready for Paris

Deng’s unprecedented 800m performance by an Aussie comes at the same time as other Australian track stars have also done amazing things such as

• Peter Bol (pictured) hitting top form with a 1500m PB
• Commonwealth Games gold medallist Olli Hoare running an Australian 1500m record
• Teenage sensation Cam Myers becoming fastest 17-year-old over 1500m in the world
• Jessica Hull breaking the Australian 1500m and 3000m records.
• Catriona Bisset ranked in world top eight for 800m

 All of them are in sparkling form and racing in the prestigious invitation only Diamond League throughout Europe.

The duo are ranked in the top five globally for 800m.

Deng was born in a Kenyan refugee camp in 1998 after his mother fled the brutal civil war in Sudan.

The family then chose to come to Australia to live and arrived in Queensland in 2004, with Deng soon showing huge promise as an athlete.

His manager, James Templeton  was standing at the 100m mark with Peter Bol when Deng turned for home in his record-breaking French race.

‘We were jumping up and down for him because Joe has been hurt for so long,’ Templeton said.

‘When he won Pete was beside himself with joy for his mate then when the time came up, showing Joe had broken his record, I swear Pete jumped even higher.’

Within an hour of that run, Bol lined up in the 1500m and ran an astonishing time, just missing the Australian qualifying for the World Champs in the 1500m.

The 1500m is not his race of choice, but his performance was stunning. As was the unknown teenager trailing just a half a second behind him.

That was Aussie Cameron Myers who has the tongues of the world’s leading athletics authorities wagging. No-one his age can run 1500m as fast as the young Canberra-based teen can. 

And only the legendary Jakob Ingebrigtsen when he was 17, five years ago, has ever run faster.

Myers ran 3:35.02 in France. It smashed every Australian national record up to and including the Under 20 1500m record.

Next Monday [Australian time] in Poland he may well be joining Olli Hoare and Stewy McSweyn in the Australian team for the 1500m if things fall into place for him.

Myers will race against the colossus, the world’s greatest and most dominant athlete in Norway’s Ingebrigtsen over 1500m.

McSweyn was asked by the Norwegian if he would rabbit (pace) the field for the first 1000m as he attempts to break the world record over 1500m. Myers will be in the field.

Ingebrigtsen, 22, won the gold medal in the 1500 metres at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, setting an Olympic and European record. 

At the 2022 World Athletics Championships, Ingebrigtsen took silver in the 1500 metres and a gold in the 5000 metres. 

Jakob Ingebrigtsen is an Olympic gold medallist, was the fastest teenage 1500m runner in history races the Aussie Cam Myers who is the 2nd fastest 1500m teenager ever on Monday in Poland

Experts across the world rate 17 year old Aussie Cameron Myers as about the best rising teenage talent alive and he races Ingebrigtsen 17 July

He is a four-time European champion, winning the 1500/5000 double in 2018 and 2022. 

Myers can’t boast that record yet – but he is a prodigious talent who has natural world class speed, but more than that he has no fear. 

McSweyn will lead, the great Norwegian will be directly behind him and Myers may well go with them given the bravado of youth. 

If he keeps finding he can hang on, break more age records and force his way onto the Australian team for the World Championships.

At the moment Myers’ 3:35.52 is just three seconds away from making the team and becoming the greatest for his age in history.