Morgan Mitchell has underlined her position as the 400m sprinter to beat at the Australian Athletics Championships, after adding a Queensland Track Classic win to her undefeated 2016 resume on Saturday.
Mitchell took one-lap line honours once again in Brisbane, finishing in 52.39 seconds to beat reigning national champion Anneliese Rubie (53.28) and Caitlin Jones, who crossed for third with a season-best time of 53.48.
Both Mitchell and Rubie have already bettered the Olympic qualifying mark of 52.20, but it's the former who has been uncontainable this season.
The 21-year-old Victorian has won every meet this year and set a personal best of 51.81 three weeks ago in Melbourne.
The next step is the national championships in Sydney in a fortnight's time.
"The more I win, the more confident I become," Mitchell said.
"You learn from every race, whether it be a win or a loss, because you never know what can happen the week after this one."
Alex Hartmann also has reason to be confident after claiming the 100m-200m double.
Hartmann's personal-best 10.29 earned him the 100m win over Rio hopeful Aaron Stubbs (third, 10.33) and gave him the push he needed to take out the longer event, for which he recorded an Olympic qualifying time last month.
"The PB earlier in the night was great, and it was good to back up from the 100m so well," Hartmann said.
"Nationals could deliver a surprise.
"I don't want to jinx myself, but I want to drop something quick and feel like I'm in the shape to do it."
Commonwealth Games high jump champion Eleanor Patterson won her event but fell short of her recent top form.
The 19-year-old cleared 1.87m, far less than her second Olympic-qualifying time of 1.93 earlier this month.
