Lisa Weightman

About Lisa

Lisa Weightman’s selection for Tokyo, her fourth Olympic Games, continues her enduring career, making up for lost time. She becomes just the eighth Australian in athletics to go to a record four Games. She joins marathoners Steve Moneghetti, Lisa Ondieki, Rob de Castella and Benita Willis as four-time Olympians.

Aged 42, she becomes the third oldest Australian athlete to compete in athletics at the Olympics. 

She started running with her dad and sister to develop her heart and lungs as a young girl. At high school, she placed seventh in a race and said to her mum and dad “I want to train for it next time and win a medal.” 

They supported her to do so and she trained around the Preston City Oval while her dad coached his football team.

The following year she finished on the podium and made her first Victorian team. She won national junior medals in the 3000m, but the transition years to seniors were troublesome.

“I had a lot of my traumatic injury years as a runner when I was in my 20s, and I think the main reason I’m 42 and running PBs is that I started late and built up slowly,” Weightman said.

“I was so injury-prone in my 20s, my coach Dick Telford and I made a decision to take things slowly over the years and try for longevity.  I think this approach has paid off.”  

Aged 27, she made her international debut at the World Road Running Championships and within two years, now aged 29, she made her Olympic debut in Beijing.

She placed a tremendous 33rd and commenced an impressive international championship career. In 2008, then 2009 she placed 20th and 17th respectively in the world cross country – one of only three Aussie women to claim two or more top-20 places in this event. In 2009 she was also 18th in the marathon at the world championships, then the equal second-best by an Australian woman.

The next year in 2010 she won the first of two Commonwealth Games marathon medals, third in Delhi and silver on the Gold Coast (2018). In 2012 at the London Olympics, she achieved probably her best career performance at a global meet, placing 17th - the fourth-best performance ever by an Australian woman. In the Rio Olympics she placed 31st, two years ahead of her Gold Coast Commonwealth Games silver medal. 

Amongst this glorious championship record, in 2017 she clocked her marathon personal best of 2:25.15 when placing fifth in the London Marathon, becoming the third-fastest in Australian ever (she is now fourth). 

In August 2019, she won a fantastic half marathon race against leading Aussies Ellie Pashley and Sinead Diver on the Sunshine Coast, breaking the Australian all-comers record with a time of 68:48. In January 2020 she clocked her second-fastest marathon, 2:26.02, almost certainly sealing Olympic selection.  

Over a year later, Lisa Weightman’s selection for Tokyo was confirmd - her fourth Olympic Games
She became just the eighth Australian in athletics to go to a record four Games. She joined marathoners Steve Moneghetti, Lisa Ondieki, Rob de Castella and Benita Willis as four-time Olympians. Aged 42, she became the third oldest Australian athlete to compete in athletics at the Olympics.

Weightman was magnificent in Tokyo, or specifically Sapporo where the marathon was conducted, achieving her second-best ever Olympic place of 26th, clocking 2:34.19 in the stifling heat.
"It did feel like a battlefield when we were all getting ready, ice baths, ice towels and the works. It has been an experience that we will never forget," said Lisa.
It was also Lisa’s fourth Olympics where she was top-35, an outstanding achievement. 

Since competing at her fourth Olympic Games in Japan in 2021, Lisa Weightman is running better than ever. Now aged 45, she has set two marathon PBs within six months in late 2022 and early 2023. She kicked off a golden period with a 75 second personal best time of 2:24.00 at the Berlin Marathon in September 2022. 

In February 2023, she improved her personal best by another 45 seconds bringing her best time to 2:23.15 in Osaka.  Lisa moved from fourth to third Australian all-time. Incredibly, a week after Osaka, while she was still in Japan, she placed nineth in the Tokyo marathon in a time of 2:31.42. She made her second world championships appearance in August 2023, in Budapest where she placed 16th in 2:30.50 in the heat. In late 2023 and early 2024, she clocked another two sub-2:25 marathons in Valencia and Osaka. They were her 24th and 25th career marathons and brought up a total of 16 sub-2:30 marathons in her 16-years of running marathons.

Weightman has a very different life than many other full-time athletes. “I currently hold three full-time roles – mum to little Peter, IBM technology consultant of 20 plus years and Olympian and two-time Commonwealth Games marathon medallist,” she said.