The Sydney Track Classic is an annual outdoor track and field meeting held in February or March at the

Sydney Olympic Park Athletic Centre Sydney Olympic Park Athletic Centre is a multi-use stadium in Sydney Olympic Park, Australia. The capacity of the stadium is 5,000 spectators. It also hosted the 1996 World Junior Championships in Athletics and served as the warm-up track for th ...

in the suburb of

Sydney Olympic Park Sydney Olympic Park is a suburb of Greater Western Sydney, located 13 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the City of Parramatta Council. It is commonly known as Olympic Park but officially na ...

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. It is part of the national

Australian Athletics Tour The Australian Athletics Tour, formerly the ''Athletics Grand Prix Series'' is a series of annual Australian track and field competitions which is held from February to April. Australian athletes aiming at selection in the Olympic Games, World C ...

, alongside the Melbourne Track Classic. The history of the event emerged from a series of major athletics meetings which were held in the 1990s.History
Sydney Track Classic. Retrieved 2011-03-24. The 1999 competition was the opening leg of the

IAAF Grand Prix The IAAF Grand Prix was an annual, global circuit of one-day outdoor track and field competitions organized by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF). It was created in 1985 as the IAAF's first seasonal track and field circu ...

circuit and it formed part of the preparation towards the

2000 Sydney Olympics The 2000 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXVII Olympiad and also known as Sydney 2000 (Dharug: ''Gadigal 2000''), the Millennium Olympic Games or the Games of the New Millennium, was an international multi-sport event held from 1 ...

. The meeting was abandoned in 2002, but events hosted by the Sydney University Athletics Club and

Athletics New South Wales Athletics may refer to: Sports * Sport of athletics, a collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking ** Track and field, a sub-category of the above sport * Athletics (physical culture), competiti ...

saw the Sydney Track Classic restored in 2006. By 2009 the competition was attracting top level domestic athletes (such as

Steve Hooker ''yes'Steve is a masculine given name, usually a short form (hypocorism) of Steven or Stephen Notable people with the name include: steve jops * Steve Abbott (disambiguation), several people * Steve Adams (disambiguation), several people * Steve ...

and

Sally McLellan Sally Pearson, OAM (née McLellan; born 19 September 1986) is an Australian former athlete. She is the 2011 and 2017 World champion and 2012 Olympic champion in the 100 metres hurdles. She also won a silver medal in the 100 m hurdles at th ...

) as well as a number of high-profile foreign athletes (including

Asafa Powell Asafa Powell, CD (born 23 November 1982) is a retired Jamaican sprinter who specialised in the 100 metres. He set the 100 metres world record twice, between June 2005 and May 2008 with times of 9.77 and 9.74 seconds. Powell has consiste ...

, Melaine Walker, and Valerie Vili). The meeting was ranked first domestically for the level of performances that year. Hooker,

Dani Samuels Dani Stevens (née Samuels, born 26 May 1988) is a retired Australian discus thrower who in 2009 became the youngest ever female world champion in the event. She is the current national and Oceanian record holder. Stevens qualified for the 2020 ...

and

Tero Pitkämäki Tero Kristian Pitkämäki (born 19 December 1982) is a Finnish retired track and field athlete who competed in the javelin throw. He is a World Champion, having won gold in 2007. His personal best throw of 91.53 m, set in 2005, ranks him eleve ...

provided the highlights of the 2010 edition, while

Mitchell Watt Mitchell Watt (born 25 March 1988) is an Australian track & field athlete. His main event is the long jump and holds the current Oceania record for the long jump – 8.54m. He was the first ever Australian long jump medalist at a World Champio ...

and

David Rudisha David Lekuta Rudisha, MBS (born 17 December 1988) is a Kenyan middle-distance runner who specialized in the 800 metres. He is a two-time back-to-back Olympic champion from the 2012 London and 2016 Rio Olympics, a two-time World champion from t ...

topped the bill in 2011. In 2020 the meeting kicked off the inaugural

World Athletics Continental Tour The World Athletics Continental Tour is an annual series of independent track and field athletic competitions, recognised by World Athletics (formerly known as the IAAF). The Tour forms the second tier of international one-day meetings after the ...

Previous Editions

Meet Records

Men

Women

References

External links

Official websiteOfficial website
from Athletics Australia {{Australian Athletics Tour Annual track and field meetings Athletics competitions in Australia IAAF Grand Prix Sports competitions in Sydney World Athletics Continental Tour meetings