“It is actually a funny thing with high jump, if you jump too high over the bar you will actually hit it off with your feet so I was like none of that, not showing off, just do your job, be humble, be strong and get back out there for the end,” Olyslagers said.
The final will be in an unusual morning time slot in Birmingham on Saturday starting at 10.17am locally (7.17pm in Melbourne).
“It’s very strange for major in a final, but I’m not mad about it. We had a morning end at the world indoors and I train in the mornings every day. I’m a morning person, so I can wake up and be prepped and ready to go whatever time it is,” Patterson said.
In the 1500m Stewart McSweyn was a late withdrawal with a flu, but Australia’s Ollie Hoare was superb in winning his heat and making the final in what will be one of the strongest fields in any event or race at the Commonwealth Games.
Hoare beat reigning world champion and the Olympic silver medalist Timothy Cheruiyot from Kenya in his heat, running the quickest time of the day in 3:37:57.
“Honestly I didn’t know what to expect, that field is extremely tough,” Hoare said.
The 1500m in Birmingham will have the three men who ran second, third and fourth at the Olympics, and Jake Wightman who just won the world championship gold in the US.
And of that quality field Hoare qualified quicker than any of them in what was a hard heat with runners knowing only the first five in each heat and then the next two quickest runners would advance.
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Meanwhile, dual world champion Kelsey-Lee Barber is still testing positive to COVID and has felt unwell but has insisted she will be on the start line to back up her recent world championship with a Commonwealth gold.
The Commonwealth Games Authority and Australian team have cleared Barber to be able to compete in Sunday’s event despite the positive tests.
“I haven’t quite been symptom free but definitely not as sick as a lot of people you hear about I definitely feel pretty normal now but I was not quite right,” Barber said late this week from the team village where she is being kept away from other athletes.
“In the last couple of days I have been feeling better. I am still testing positive.”
“I have not been bed ridden but I have not been quite right. I have been able to train and everyone has done everything they can to help but I have had to manage it, coming from Eugene and being jet-lagged and getting COVID I just had to be careful. I’ve just been trying to listen to my body.
“I will be on the start line.”
Get all the latest news from the Birmingham Commonwealth Games here. We’ll be live blogging the action from 4pm-10am daily.
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