Overview
- Haftu Strintzos won the Gold Coast Marathon in 2:06:20 on Sunday, lowering Andy Buchanan’s Australian men's marathon record by two seconds.
- The win made Strintzos the first Australian man to claim the Gold Coast title in 20 years and improved the event course record by 73 seconds.
- The 26-year-old produced the time in only his fourth marathon after a year of mixed results that included a DNF, a 2:11 at Sydney and a tune-up half win in Launceston.
- Japan’s Hidekazu Hijikata was second in 2:07:20, also inside the former race mark, and Australia’s Izzi Batt‑Doyle ran 1:07:29 to set the fastest women’s half-marathon time on home soil that weekend.
- The national record has shifted only three times in about 40 years — from Rob de Castella to Brett Robinson to Andy Buchanan and now Strintzos — a sequence that suggests rising competitiveness and could boost Strintzos’s profile for selection and sponsorship opportunities.