Is Athletics Australia Corrupt and is Nic Bideau the leader?

Looks like Brett may have lost his Nike sponsorship, no longer has nike athlete in his Instagram bio

For my money - the most naturally talented of the road athletes in the MTC stable. But for whatever reason - hasn't been clicking for the last 3 years (set his NR in 2022). I would love to see him give a proper coach a go, who changes workouts, has athletes go to altitude (note: Falls Creek is not altitude), actually plans out fuelling, etc. But at 34 that's probably too late.

I agree, I'd love Brett to join Emile and Amanal in Kenya. From what I've heard on FTK, Brett has a desire to run big mileage which would suit being coached by Canova. The issue is Brett and Jack both love being based in Melbourne (again from what I can tell from FTK).

Jessica Stenson took the Australian women's marathon record in Valencia:

abc.net.au

'We just cried': Stenson breaks marathon record in emotional scenes

Jessica Stenson breaks the Australian marathon record before an emotional phone call to the former record holder, Sinead Diver.

Open link

Pretty bad day all told for MTC at Valencia.

The Gregsons continue to push the envelope on how long it will be before Gen beats Ryan head to head. Long way to go to run 2:17 and 2:28.50.

Brett Robinson and Charlotte Purdue both DNF.

Izzy a solid 2:23 - but one can't help but feel she's missing an opportunity to dominate the AUS scene and emerging as a truly world class by focusing on the marathon as opposed to jumping between roads and track constantly.

I think it is pretty lame athletes like Brett Robinson go all this way to drop out of a race.

Pre-race he is posting all Strava activities and training videos, and then he doesn't post his DNF race and vanishes following the race.

He probably thought Valencia was a cheat code to a fast time, except he bails when things aren't going his way.

Delighted for Jess to get the AR; she’s a lovely person and a great racer. Brilliant run by her.

I honestly thought Izzi would get it this time; I think Izzi is the most talented of all but hasn’t yet converted her half ability (67:17) to the full marathon. It’ll come soon.

Gen’s time, considering she gave birth five months ago, is very impressive indeed. The media coverage has (rightly) been on Jess, however, Gen more than delivered on the day and ran really well.

The men’s side…. yeah, not so great.

People are forgetting Jess ran 2:23:59 in Daegu 6 months after having her second baby, which was by C-section, so a harder recovery. Credit to Gen on a good run, but Jess had already set the bar very high.

Ryan is surely close to putting the cue back in the rack?

At this point in her career, a 2:28 does nothing for Gen. So if you're not in shape to run fast, I'm not sure what the point of flying your entire family across the world to race is. Surely it wasn't so Ryan could get chicked?

Ryan getting beaten by dudes with full-time jobs running 2:17. He's been able to extend his professional running career an extra 4 years just based on track times by switching to the roads in 2022. Gotta respect the hustle but I don't think he gets any faster than what he's already run in the marathon - 36 next year.

Feel bad for TDC though. The guy rocks up at the world cross trials and beats a bunch of sponsored guys over a decade younger than him and finishes 6th. Then goes over to Spain and runs 2:11, again beating all the "professional" athletes. One of the guys that he beats in Valencia (Hatfu), who didn't even rock up to the trials gets selected ahead of him on the world cross team. All this whilst being 39 and running a business/having a family. Easiest guy to love in Aussie running I reckon.

Also, has anyone seen literally one single promo for Zatopek10 this weekend? i cannot find anything on AA's socials and had to dig into their website to find the details. I'm assuming because it's not an "ON Track Night" this year, they don't give an eff about it??

Could be one of the deeper men's fields we've seen in a while
https://athsvic.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/zatopek-entry-list-no-seed-7.pdf

no surprise Purdue and Robinson DNF

both are completely washed. Purdues had more marathon DNFs than finishes. both old and surprisingly why anyone would continue sponsoring them, time to hang them up or be recreational joggers

Possibly a question I should know the answer to - but is Brett being forced to stay in Melbourne and train with MTC for some reason? Is there any reason he can't just say that enough is enough and go train properly elsewhere? Or is it that he just, I don't know, likes Melbourne or something?
Not trying to hate, I want to see guys like him do well, just trying to understand what the situation is

I think he simply likes Melbourne. For a marathon runner the pro here is that you can run all year round. However, Australia doesn't really have a valid altitude training camp base (Falls Creek is only ~1600m/5200ft) and the travel to get to any major race is absolutely brutal. In my opinion it's a pity that he didn't take a crack on a different training group when he was younger, as I don't think he reached the heights he could have otherwise. I feel the same way about Izzy as well.

Biggest rort in history, Haftu is coached by an Australian Athletics employee.

Par for the course. NB has been doing it for decades, not its Didyks turn.

ZATOPEK10 stream here - youtube. com/watch?v=KE6Hbv07ZUI

Without ON's money, this event has returned to a Vic Milers Club with a larger club. Not a whole lot going on at the stadium. Still a few hours before the 3ks/10ks start

Death, taxes, and an MTC athlete tanking. Hope Stewy is ok. It was a decent 6km or so. Seth is flying.