World championship bronze medallist Ben Offereins joined world champion Dani Samuels and Olympic silver medallist Sally Pearson as the athletes who stole the show at the Brisbane Track Classic earlier this evening.
Offereins, the 2010 national 400m champion stopped the clock at 46.25 to take victory ahead of Commonwealth Games relay team mate Kevin Moore (2nd, 46.81) and New Zealander Alex Jordan (3rd, 46.92).
“I’ve only ran twice so far this year, and not across 400m, so to come out with a comfortable win was great,” Offereins said.
“I’ll be honest and say that I had eight weeks off after Comm (sic) Games and haven’t really done a solid base yet, the past couple of weeks have been my first real set of 400m training.
“My plan this season is to do my thing where I can, peak in April and then battle it out for a spot on the Daegu team.
“It’ll be tough but that’s the plan and that’s what I am working towards.”
Offereins also picked up a maximum 8 points for his victory, with points available at a total of five domestic meets through the summer season.
In other athlete results, Jody Henry ran 23.69 sec to place third in the 200m behind Commonwealth Games gold medallist Pearson, who also won the 100m earlier in the evening.
Commonwealth Games pole vault champion Alana Boyd had a disappointing night, only managing to clear 3.70m off an abbreviated run-up.
“That’s definitely one to forget,” Boyd said afterwards.
“I’m not too sure what happened to be honest. I’m in good shape but just had a bad night. Next week I am back to my full run-up which will be good and I’m looking forward to getting out there again.”
The Athletics Tour’s next stop is the Briggs Athletics Classic in Hobart on 20 February.