Athletics

Marathon Runner

Born: 16 January 1979

Birth Place: Melbourne, Victoria

Resides: Melbourne, Victoria

Height: 157cm

Personal Bests:

Marathon – 2:25:15 (London, 2017)

Half Marathon – 1:08:48 (Sunshine Coast, 2019)

10km Road – 31:55 (Sydney, 2019)

Marathon running is not for the faint-hearted. Only the most determined thrive in the punishing event. Enter, Lisa Weightman. Weightman overcame injuries and setbacks early in her career before finally making her marathon debut in 2008. And what a debut it was. Weightman finished 13th in the London Marathon with a time of 2:32.22, the equal fastest debut by any Australian and one that qualified her for the Beijing Olympics just four months later.

Weightman also represented Australia at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin before backing up with a breakout 12-months. In 2010, she captured her debut title at Japan’s Nagano Olympic Commemorative Marathon with a personal best of 2:28.48, placing her fifth on Australia’s the all-time list, broke the Australian Half Marathon all-comers record on the Gold Coast and then went on to win Bronze at the Commonwealth Games.

A year later, Weightman overcame a lengthy injury to post an impressive Olympic qualifier in the 2011 Frankfurt Marathon. At the London Games she became just the third Australian woman to finish in the top 20 of an Olympic marathon after producing a career-best run, clocking 2:27:32. This time was again bettered by Weightman in 2013, blitzing the field at the Melbourne Marathon to run 2:26:05.

Weightman became a triple Olympian when she made the Rio de Janeiro Games but was affected by a bout of illness. She set a new personal best at the London Marathon in 2017 and then added a Silver medal at the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast in 2018. Now in her 40s, still juggling work commitments and life as a mother of four-year-old Pete, Weightman is showing no signs of slowing down, recently setting a new World Masters and Australian all-comers record in the Sunshine Coast Half Marathon and taking out the national road running championship in Adelaide. Weightman has her eyes firmly set on the Tokyo Olympics.