Oliver Hoare

Running fast has always been in the life of Sutherland athlete Oliver Hoare. But his sharp rise in the last few years has seen him change his running surface from sand to track.

“I started running because of my family background,” Oliver recalled. “Mostly I swam, and my father Greg, who used to run in his youth, took me for runs around the trails. As a child, I did cross country while juggling many other sports.”

Oliver’s father Greg was a good track runner and world beach running champion over 2km, a pathway Oliver also followed, winning the under-15 (2012) and under-17 (2013) 2km beach run at the Australian titles along with team medals in the swim and board races. He also swam at state level.
Although Oliver was still swimming in his teens, soon athletics became the focus.

“Once I reached high school, I really started to develop as a runner, particularly in track,” he says. “I won the 2015 Australian cross-country championships as a 17-year-old competing in under 20s. I loved the thrill and knew I had to fully focus on track and cross country.”

Initially he went to high school locally before transferring to Trinity Grammar, where he came under the coaching of Brad Woods and a strong sports system.

At a neighbouring school to Trinity was Newington’s Morgan McDonald, who was a year older and a good friend of Oliver. They raced during their teens and Morgan was a strong influence on the career of his young friend. Morgan was a four-time NCAA champion competing for the University of Wisconsin and it was natural Oliver would follow him to the same institution.

“I have known Morgan since I was 10, running at the national cross-country championships in Perth in 2007-8,” Oliver says. “Since then, Morgan has been a mentor and a good mate. We have a lot of good times and banter. He was a big reason I went to Wisconsin. The school’s heritage, academics as well as the coaching was a major factor too, but having Morgan there was huge for me to learn from him and to run with a fellow Aussie over in the States.”

In college, Oliver followed a similar successful path as Morgan, winning the NCAA 1500m title in 2018.

In 2019, Oliver smashed his personal bests including an extraordinary 3:54.83 indoors mile at the Millrose Games, an annual indoor event in New York. Set for a big 2020, COVID hit. He graduated with a degree in economics, but decided to leave the college running system.

In August he joined the “On Training” group under coach Dathan Ritzenhein, training out of Colorado. Late in 2020, he resumed racing, clocking a massive 1500m PB of 3:34.63, an Olympic qualifier, although not in the qualification window. He also ran a world leading mile time of 3:53.35. In an unofficial race he also clocked the first sub-four-minute mile (3:56) at altitude (1600m) in Colorado.

After a return to Australia in late 2020 to sort out visa issues, in early 2021 he undertook a stunning series of races in the US. It started with an Australian indoor 1500m record of 3:32.35, then two more Olympic qualifiers, both outdoors in times of 3:33.54 and 3:33.19.

He had been unable to return to Australian for the April 2021 national championships/Olympic trials, but was still selected for his Olympic debut.

In Tokyo, Oliver joined national 1500m record holder Stewart McSweyn in the Olympic 1500m final, where he placed 11th. It was the first occasion in 65 years, since the 1956 Olympics, that Australia had two runners in the final of this event.

Oliver continued that form into the 2021-22 American Indoor season with two Australian records from two starts in the mile and 5000m. In June 2022, he pushed the Olympic champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen all the way in the Oslo Dream Mile, clocking an Australian record of 3:47.48 and becoming the 13th-fastest in history.

At the world championships in Eugene, Oliver won his 1500m heat comfortably, but in the semi-final, he seemed to be shuffled back through the field a couple of times and at the end looked out of gas and unable to mount a challenge. He placed 10th in 3:38.36.

Determined to rebound from his world championships performance, against a world-class field in Birmingham, Oliver won a very fast Commonwealth Games 1500m final in 3:30.12. The time broke the 48-year-old championship record by two seconds and moved Oliver to number two in Australian history. He joined just two other Aussies as a 1500m gold medallist in major championships:  Edwin Flack at the 1896 Olympics and Herb Elliott at the 1958 Commonwealth Games and the 1960 Olympics.

In February 2023, he ran on his first Australian team on home soil at the World Athletics Cross Country Championships in Bathurst in the mixed gender 4x2km relay team. He led off the national team, which won bronze – his first global medal.

In June at the Bislett Games in Oslo he placed seventh in a deep 1500m race, clocking an Australian record time of 3:29.41. But things were not good, and he was eventually diagnosed with a sports hernia and injured pelvis, requiring surgery, putting an end to his season. He spent time in Australia rehabilitating the injury.

He would not return to competition for 10 months, until April in Adelaide at the Australian championships where he ran a strong race to place second. The next goal was to record an Olympic qualifier and that was achieved over the mile at the Prefontaine meet. He then travelled to Oslo, competing in the 1500m five days later and clocking an impressive 3:31.08 in sixth place.

During his time injured Oliver spoke candidly, via a monologue on his Coffee Club podcast, about his mental heath challenges. In an article published on the ABC Sport website, his 2022 season – where he won the 1500m title at the Commonwealth Games – was described as “professionally, best year ever; personally, his worst”.

"Mentally, I had a lot of head noise," he told ABC Sport. "I had a lot of issues dealing with it … I was very low."

He sought help from a counsellor and spoke to his family.

"I've been able to kind of identify that I can't just run through things physically and achieve goals," he said.

Ollie’s father Greg was a good track runner and world beach running champion over 2km, a pathway Ollie also followed winning the U15 (2012) and U17 (2013) 2km beach run at the Australian titles along with team medals in the swim and board races. He also swam at State level.

Although still swimming in his teens, soon athletics became the focus.

“Once I reached high school, I really started to develop as a runner, particularly in track. I won the 2015 Australian cross-country championships as a 17-year-old competing in under 20s. I loved the thrill and knew I had to fully focus on track and cross country.” Initially he went to high school locally before transferring to the leading Combined Associated School Trinity Grammar, where he came under the coaching of Brad Woods and a strong sports system.

At a neighbouring school to Trinity was Newington’s Morgan McDonald, who was a year older and a good friend of Hoare. They raced during their teens and it would be no surprise McDonald would have a strong influence on the career of Hoare. McDonald was a four-time NCAA champion competing for the University of Wisconsin and it was natural Hoare would follow him to the same institution.