Olympic Medalist’s Painful Past Reminded After Sydney Marathon: “Heartbroken Family”

Sydney Marathon did not just witness Sifan Hassan winning the race in 2:18:22 and creating a course record and the fastest marathon time ever by a woman in Australia. It witnessed the rebirth of a friendship. At the 2025 TCS Sydney Marathon, Leanne Pompeani claimed the Australian women’s title, standing 7th overall, with a time of 2:24:47, the fastest marathon ever recorded by an Australian woman on home soil. And other Australian marathoners Jessica Stenson and Olympic medalist, Lisa Weightman, crossed the finish line in 8th and 9th place with times of 2:28:56 and 2:29:34. Next? Iconic moment –

Once the race was over, Stenson hugged Pompeani. The hug soon turned into a three-way one as four-time Olympian Lisa Weightman joined them. Weightman also supported Stenson when she struggled after hitting the wall, helping her stay on her feet. Watching this, legendary sports commentator Bruce McAvaney said, “There were some difficult times because of selection…That makes all of us feel oh so good…I feel like crying, to be honest.”

North South made a post of them hugging, captioned, “Honestly, just how special are these three Aussie women! Wow.” But why did he feel like crying? Why did they make the post?  All goes back to 2024 when Weightman’s husband, Lachlan McArthur, took to X with a pointed message for Stenson.

The post readm writing, “@JessTrengove could you please take down your background photo of my family,” and noting, “BTW, this was after one of the 7-1 all-time head to head wins by @LisaWeightman.” The post included an old photo showing McArthur, Weightman, their young son, Stenson, and two others happily interacting.

Then, after Stenson updated her cover photo, he responded, “Thank you @JessTrengove for taking down the photo. It is much appreciated. We have a heartbroken family here,” before eventually deleting his account. Back in 2024, the selection of the Australian marathon team for Paris had created a tense situation between the two.

In 2024, Athletics Australia chose Sinéad Diver, Genevieve Gregson, and Jessica Stenson for the Paris marathon, leaving Lisa Weightman out despite her impressive 2:23:15 personal best, faster than both Stenson and Wellings. “I am of course disappointed by the decision given that I fought hard and fair to gain my qualification time,” Weightman said in a statement.

And as the track and field athlete was disappointed, can you imagine what happened next?

Lisa Weightman’s legal battle for an Olympic spot

AA’s decision did not sit right with Lisa; she appealed to the National Sports Tribunal. Weightman argued that AA had not properly applied its own nomination criteria, especially with respect to the World Athletics Qualification System. Also, she argued that AA had not given proper reasons for her non-selection, as required by the Australian Olympic Committee’s By-Law.

The NST found in Weightman’s favor, holding that AA did indeed fail to apply the criteria properly and provide the reasons required for her exclusion. The decision read, “Athletics Australia may consider it appropriate, if permissible within the relevant rules and guidelines, and if reasonably practicable within the time allowed, to convene a new Selection Committee, independent from the original Committee, for that purpose in order to avoid any concerns in relation to bias that any athlete may have.”

Despite the NST’s finding, Athletics Australia refused to appoint an independent committee for the reconsideration as recommended by the Tribunal. Athletics Australia’s original selection panel then reaffirmed their earlier decision to exclude the Olympic medalist from the team. The next step was the CAS. However, she chose not to pursue the CAS case, stating a legal fee of $50,000 as the reason.

And now that they have left all this chaos behind, it’s only natural to feel all the emotions, sharing the warmth of pecks as they reached the finish line at TCS Sydney Marathon 2025.