Jess Hull, Ky Robinson hit medal path at world indoors | USAEMALL.com

Jess Hull has added another global medal to her burgeoning collection and Ky Robinson grabbed his first as Australia celebrated double 3000m bronze at the world indoor championships in Nanjing.

As Ethiopian Freweyni Hailu swept to a conclusive victory in the women’s 15-lap race on Saturday, Australia’s Olympic 1500m silver medallist Hull looked in line for another second-place until pipped by American Shelby Houlihan, who’s just returned from a four-year doping ban.

Then, within the next quarter of an hour, 23-year-old Queenslander Robinson ran the race of his life in the equivalent men’s race to grab his maiden major championship bronze behind Norwegian superstar Jakob Ingebrigtsen, who sealed the first leg of his 3000m/1500m double attempt.

For Hull, who improved on her fourth-place finish in the 3000m in Glasgow last year, bronze represented a tremendous result after illness struck her early-season preparations in the New Year.

Starting off fast before the contest went into a mid-race lull, the 28-year-old from Wollongong decided to make her push with two laps to go, only for 2025 world leader Hailu, who won the 1500m in Glasgow, to sweep past with just over 200m to go and storm away to victory in 8min 37.21sec.

Hull held on strongly down the final home straight, but Houlihan (8:38.26) edged past to pip the Aussie (8:38.28) for silver by two hundredths of a second.

That must have been a frustration for Hull in a result which will raise eyebrows among the athletics world since 32-year-old Houlihan only returned to the sport in January after finishing her four-year ban for testing positive for the muscle-building steroid, nandrolone, in 2021.

The American never stopped training for her return during her ban, always protesting that her positive test may have been down to eating contaminated pork the night before.

In the men’s race, the ever-improving Brisbane runner Robinson made his move with three-and-half laps to go, pushing the pace from the front but he was knocked back to fourth as the race entered its last-lap denouement.

But Robinson showed his strength to again fight back down the home straight, edging past American Sam Gilman by a tenth of a second to grab third place in 7:47.09.

Up ahead, Ingebrigtsen, who’d been boxed in midway through the race, got himself out of trouble and outstayed Ethiopia’s Berihu Aregawi (7:46.25) to win in 7:46.09, putting himself in the position to emulate the great Haile Gebrselassie’s 1500/3000m double in 1999.

The Norwegian goes in the shorter final on Sunday.

Hopes of a third Australian medal sank when Kurtis Marschall (5.80 metres) could only finish fifth in a men’s pole vault final inevitably dominated by the great Armand ‘Mondo’ Duplantis, who completed his 100th vault over six metres before sealing yet another global triumph with a 6.15m clearance.

Torrie Lewis couldn’t make the women’s 60m final, unable to get near her recently-set Australian national record of 7.14sec as she bowed out fourth in her semi in 7.23sec.

The Swiss star Mujinga Kambundji went on to win a second global title at 60m with a 7.04sec run in the final.

Marie-Julie Bonnin, of France, had earlier cleared 4.75m to win the women’s vault.