Beahan and Ramsden Added to Australian Flame Team for World Champs
Two WA track stars have been added to the Australian Flame team for the 2019 World Championships in Doha starting late this month.
Hurdler Brianna Beahan and emerging middle distance dasher Matt Ramsden received roll-down selection this week and will join the previously selected Liz Parnova (pole vault) and Rochelle Rodgers (marathon) in Australia’s 57-strong squad.
To borrow track and field parlance, 2019 represents a changing of the baton for the Australian Flame, with Beahan set to take up the challenge of being Australia’s lead female sprint hurdler after the recent retirement of the great Sally Pearson.
Doha will be a first world championships for Beahan, who in 2018 made the final of the women’s 100m hurdles – taking fifth place.
With a personal best of 13.02sec, Beahan has regularly threatened to post a breakout time at a major competition meet, but a combination of injury and missed starts has thwarted that from becoming reality.
Still shy of her 28th birthday, Beahan will be hoping that breakout performance occurs in the heat of the middle east.
Matt Ramsden has enjoyed a career best season in 2019 which saw him earn headlines in July when he broke the six decade long Western Australian state record in the men’s 1500m which had been owned by the luminary middle distance champion Herb Elliott.
At world championship level however, raw pace typically gives way to tactics, and Ramsden will get the opportunity to run with the international cream of the crop for the first time in Doha.
What he lacks in experience however, the 22 year-old more than makes up for in charisma, and Ramsden’s journey is one that is well worth following in the years ahead.