By Jamie Furness
Grade 11 student Kobe Blake from St John’s Anglican College has placed 5th at the Australian All School Championships event for the 400m hurdles on December 10, 2022 with a new personal best time of 57.93 seconds.
Kobe qualified for the event after coming 3rd in the 400m hurdle event at the Queensland Secondary Schools Track and Field Championships held between October 13 – 16 2022, which he completed in 58 seconds.
“I ran a good personal best … it felt really good,” Kobe said.
His latest personal best of 57.93 seconds is more than a second shorter than his previous best time of 59 seconds, which he achieved at Nationals in the Queensland Athletics (club event) earlier in 2022.
“He’s been working really hard, and improving those results every time,” Kobe’s mother Roxann Blake said.
“Every race he seems to be getting a new personal best at the moment.”
Kobe Blake with his 3rd place medal at States.
Kobe competes in most field and track events, but is mainly focussed on the middle distance hurdling events.
Earlier in 2022 he ran in a 2km steeplechase at the Queensland Athletics (club) nationals event.
He has also qualified for the 100m hurdle for the 2023 Queensland Athletics nationals event, which will be held in April.
Kobe said he would like to be able to represent Australia in hurdling in the future.
“I think going to the 2032 Olympics in Brisbane would be great, but we’ll see,” he said.
