Abbey Caldwell says she's beginning to believe in her "big dreams" after shooting to the top among Australia's thriving band of miling stars by enjoying the best win of her career at the Xiamen Diamond League meeting in China.
While her illustrious compatriot Jess Hull and Aussie national champion Claudia Hollingsworth were eclipsed again, the 24-year-old Victorian Caldwell roared to victory in the 1500 metres in brilliant style on a hot and humid Saturday.
Caldwell had been considered an afterthought while Hull and Hollingsworth were jostling for domestic supremacy last month, but when she shot past Ethiopia's 2026 world leader Birke Haylom off the final bend to win convincingly, Australia's big two weren't in the picture.
🔥 Wow
— TrackAthletes.au (@TrackAthletesAU) May 23, 2026
Abbey Caldwell continues her fabulous form & takes her first Diamond League💎 win in 3:57.26, putting in a big surge with 150m to go & never caught
Hull was 5th in 3:58.97, Hall 8th 4:00.55, Billings 11th 4:02.00 & Hollingsworth 13th 4:06.46
📷 Flotrack pic.twitter.com/oJZxGlfmEY
Caldwell's win followed her superb breakthrough in Shanghai last week when she had finished third behind the victorious Haylom, with the rest of her Australian rivals again trailing, but she hadn't been expecting too much on Saturday after picking up a foot niggle.
Yet the manner of her victory in 3 minutes 57.26 seconds, more than half a second clear of runner-up Haylom (3:57.79) and having comprehensively distanced fifth-placed Hull (3:58.97), persuades Caldwell that a big season awaits as she guns for the Commonwealth title.
"I always have big dreams and sometimes they even scare me a little -- but based on what I ran today, I believe it's going to happen," beamed Caldwell, who's looking to improve on her Commonwealth Games bronze in Birmingham in 2022.
National 800m champ Caldwell has already been selected for the two-lap event at the Glasgow Games this year, and is heading back to Australia for a couple of weeks before flying to Europe for the Rome Diamond League meeting on June 4.
Hull had finished sixth last week in Shanghai, paying the price for her front-running exertions, but in Xiamen, decided to sit in the pack as Haylom took the long road for home, accompanied only by a bold effort from another Aussie, Sarah Billings, who eventually faded to 11th in 4:02.00.
But the Olympic silver medallist Hull couldn't keep pace with the surge from the pack led by Caldwell, who, just like the previous weekend, finished strongest of all to sweep past a tiring Haylom after making up 20m over the final lap.
Hollingsworth, who had also struggled in Shanghai, came home 13th of the 15 finishers in 4:06.46, while Linden Hall negotiated some early buffeting to finish eighth (4:00.55).
Otherwise it wasn't the most successful night for the Australian contingent, with Eleanor Patterson only finishing fifth in the high jump (1.94m) behind Ukrainian Yulia Levchenko (1.99m) and Lachlan Kennedy (10.06sec) being well beaten into sixth in the 100m behind Kenyan winner Ferdinand Omanyala (9.94).
