Zoe Hobbs

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

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.[2]

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.[2]

She set the current New Zealand U20 100 m record of 11.53 s (+1.7 m/s) on 20 July 2016 in the heats of the World U20 Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland,[3] progressing to the semi-finals where she ran slower time and was eliminated.[1]

Hobbs competed in Summer Universiades in Taipei in 2017 and Napoli in 2019, making the final of the 200 m and winning a bronze medal as part of the NZ women's 4 × 100 m relay at the latter. In January 2019, she broke Michelle Seymour's 1994 New Zealand residents 100 m record with a time of 11.42 s.[2] 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 New Zealand 100 m record of 11.32 s, before lowering it on 18 December to 11.27 s.[4]

In early 2022, she lowered her own NZ 100 m record twice more with 11.21 s and then 11.15 s.[5][3][6] 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,[7] 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.[8] 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 (+0.8w). On 16 July, she ran a faster 11.08 s (+0.7w) to finish second in the first heat of the 100m at the World Athletics Championships held in 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, finishing sixth.

On 2 March 2023, Hobbs lowered the Oceania and NZs all-comers' 100 m records with a time of 11.07 s (+1.8w) 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.[9] On 11 March at the Sydney Track Classic, Hobbs officially broke the 11-second barrier with 10.97 s (+0.5w) to set new Oceania and Australian all-comers' records.[10] Five days later at the Sir Graeme Douglas International meet in Auckland, she lowered her New Zealand all-comers' record to 11.02 s (+1.3w).[1]

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