Zoe Hobbs

Zoe Hobbs was born in Stratford, Taranaki region to Dorothy and Grant Hobbs. She is Māori of the Ngāruahine iwi. [2] She attended New Plymouth Girls' High School in New Plymouth and, from 2019, was a student of Human Nutrition at Massey University.[3]

She started running at the age of five but grew up playing a lot of sports, often trying to keep up with her older sibling.[3]

As a 15-year-old, Hobbs made the semi-finals of the 100 metres event at the 2013 World Under-18 Championships held in Donetsk, Ukraine.[1] She won the national secondary schools 100 m title three years in a row.[3]

She set the current New Zealand U20 100 m record of 11.53 s on 20 July 2016 in the heats of the World U20 Championships in Bydgoszcz Poland,[4] progressing to the semi-finals.

Hobbs competed in Summer Universiades in Taipei in 2017 and Napoli in 2019; making the finals of both the 100m and the 200 m at the latter, as well as winning a bronze medal (and setting a then new NZ record) as part of the NZ women's 4 × 100 m relay. In January 2019, she broke Michelle Seymour's 1994 New Zealand residents 100 m record with a time of 11.42 s.[3] Later that year, she competed in the 100 m and 200 m at the World Athletics Championships hosted in Doha, Qatar.[1]

In 2021, Hobbs twice equalled Michelle Seymour's 28-year-old NZ 100 m record of 11.32 s, before lowering it on 18 December to 11.27 s.[5]

In early 2022, she lowered her own NZ 100 m record twice more with 11.21 s and then 11.15 s (which also claimed the NZ all-comers record).[6][4][7] At the 2022 World Athletics Indoor Championships held in mid-March in Belgrade, Serbia, Hobbs broke the Oceania indoor 60 metres record with a time of 7.13 s,[8] qualifying for the semi-finals where she ran 7.16 s, 0.02 outside a finals berth. On 1 April she won the 100 m at the Australian Athletics Championships in a new championship record time of 11.17 s.[9] Hobbs first broke the Oceania 100 m record on 7 June in winning the final at the Oceania Athletics Championships in Mackay, Australia, with a time of 11.09 s. On 16 July, she ran a faster 11.08 s to finish second in the first heat of the 100m at the World Athletics Championships, Eugene, Oregon, thus making the semi-finals where she finished fifth (running 11.13).[1]

Hobbs made the final of the 100m at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England, initially finishing sixth. After the original fifth placegetter was disqualified for a doping offence, Hobbs was upgraded to fifth place.[10]

On 2 March 2023, Hobbs lowered the Oceania and NZ all-comers' 100 m records with a time of 11.07 s in the heats of the NZ National Championships in Wellington. In the final she ran 10.89 s with a 3.4 m/s tailwind.[11] On 11 March at the Sydney Track Classic, Hobbs officially broke the 11-second barrier with 10.97 s to set new Oceania and Australian all-comers' records.[12] Five days later at the Sir Graeme Douglas International meet in Auckland, she lowered her New Zealand all-comers' record to 11.02 s.[1]

On 2 July, Hobbs ran 10.96 s in the heats of the Resisprint International in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland to again break the Oceania Record. At the World Athletics Championships she was tenth fastest overall in the semi-finals of the 100 metres, missing the final by 0.01 s. After finishing fourth in the Memorial van Damme in Bruxelles, Belgium, on 8 September Hobbs was sixth-equal on the Diamond League points table and qualified for the Diamond League Final held at the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, Oregon, USA, on 16-17 September.

• Zoe Hobbs at World Athletics
• Zoe Hobbs at the New Zealand Olympic Committee