RT Juneau – Runner Tribe
Ky Robinson has become the first Australian man since Ron Clarke to hold both the 5,000m and 10,000m national records at the same time, after cutting nearly five seconds off Craig Mottram’s long-running mark in the 5,000m at the Diamond League in Oslo on Wednesday night.
The 24-year-old Queenslander clocked a time of 12:50.82 to finish eighth in a very deep field at Bislett Stadium, erasing the 12:55.76 time Mottram ran at the 2004 London Grand Prix, where the Victorian finished second behind Haile Gebrselassie. The record has stood for 22 years, almost as long as Robinson has been alive.
The depth of the race was extraordinary. Ethiopian Adisu Yehuni won with a personal best in the world, which was 12:47.62 minutes, ahead of Bahrain’s Birhanu Baliu, who set an Asian record with a time of 12:47.73 minutes, while Sweden’s Andreas Almgren came in third place with a time of 12:48.61 minutes. The top 11 players broke 13 minutes.
Robinson was not a passenger. He moved to the front with five laps remaining, covered the 3,000 meters in 7:48, and finished with a time of 2:28 final kilometers and 57.7 final laps. Far from celebrating, his immediate reaction was hunger. “I could have won that on a different day,” he told The Call Room podcast, adding that his dissatisfaction with the 12:50 national record reflects the standard he now sets for himself. He credited coach Dathan Ritzenhein’s race plan, which called for him to stay with the pack and not be afraid to take the race when the driver spun out with two kilometers remaining.
The race completed an impressive record double in the space of three months. In March, Robinson set the Australian 10,000m record with a time of 26:57.07 seconds in San Juan Capistrano, putting him in territory no Australian man had occupied since Clarke held both marks in the 1960s. Fittingly, the 3,200m in Oslo was almost the same pace at which Clark set his world record of 8:19.8 in the mile in 1967.
Robinson’s record was topped off by a strong Australian night in Oslo which also included a second Diamond League win for pole vaulter Curtis Marshall and a podium finish for Cameron Myers, who finished third in the Dream Mile in 3:48.35 minutes.
With no Olympics or World Championships this year, Robinson has signaled his focus has shifted to the Commonwealth Games, where he and his coaches will consider whether to attempt the 5,000m and 10,000m events.
Mottram’s mark was one of the most respected records in Australian athletics. It now belongs to a man who, the night he broke it, was upset that he didn’t win.
sources
- Inside Athletics, “Robinson joins Ron Clarke in record books with Oslo 5000m,” Tim McGrath, June 11, 2026
- Athletics Australia (athletics.com.au), “Another win and break of a long-standing Australian record at the Diamond League in Oslo”
- World Athletics, Official Race Report for the Bislett 2026 Games, 11 June 2026
- Olympics.com, “Diamond League Oslo 2026: full schedule and all results” (meet date confirmed, Wednesday 10 June 2026, Bislett Stadium)
