New South Welshman Jeff Hunt and Victorian Cassie Fien are on track to make their international debut this October following their selection for the world half marathon championships.
Hunt (27) and Fien (23) will represent Australia at the 18th edition of the championships in Birmingham, England, on October 11.
Their selection to the championships follows their outstanding results at the Gold Coast half marathon last month, Hunt placing fourth in 1:02.44 and Fien covering the 21.1km course in 1:12.24 to finish second.
Hunt, who clocked back-to-back personal best times over 10km on the Gold Coast, said his selection to the team capped what has been a notable season to date.
“I’m very, very happy to have been selected, I thought if we did send a team I’d have to be included because I thought I’d run pretty well,” Hunt said.
“Everything has been going really well the entire season, training has been great and all my races have been good key indicators that I can handle a fast, long race.”
Hunt, who has been a regular on the Australian track circuit over events ranging from 1500m to 10,000m, said the step up to the half-marathon distance was a key stepping-stone in his career.
“(Coach) Ken Green and I sat down with (Steve Moneghetti) up at Falls Creek and one of the things I said was that before I do a marathon I wanted to do a half and Mona thought that was a good idea because at least then I’d have a good benchmark as to what I can run,” he said.
Later this month Hunt will fine-tune his preparations for the Birmingham event at the national cross country championships in Nowra, NSW, where he hopes a home course advantage will help him regain the title he took out in 2007.
“I’m racing national cross at the end of the month on what’s effectively my home course, so I guess I have a slight advantage there,” Hunt said.
“I think I worked out the other day that I’ve run there every year since I was 12 and I’m 27 now so hopefully I get to win that again this year and that’s really the only thing that’s on the radar before Birmingham.
“After national cross I’ll start to build up for worlds and discuss with my coach what our expectations are but I don’t want to set too many goals because they can become limitations.”
Fien enters the world half marathon championships on the back of a stellar 12 months, taking out the national half marathon title in Melbourne in October in a time of 1:15.13 before placing second to Lara Tamsett in December’s Zatopek Classic, covering the 25-lap course in 34:34.16.
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