Zoe Hobbs

Zoe Hobbs (born 11 September 1997) is a New Zealand track and field sprinter competing in the 60 metres, 100 m and 200 m. She is the Oceanian indoor record holder for the 60 m and the Oceanian record holder for the 100 m.

Hobbs was the first Oceanian woman to break the 11-second barrier in the 100 m. She has won 11 individual New Zealand national titles.

Early life and background
Zoe Hobbs was born in Stratford, Taranaki region to Dorothy and Grant Hobbs. She is Māori, of the Ngāruahine iwi ("tribe"). She attended Ngaere School, where she would enjoy racing boys barefoot at lunchtime. She attended New Plymouth Girls' High School in New Plymouth and, from 2019, was a student of Human Nutrition at Massey University.

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. It was only in her final year of high school where she started focussing primarily on athletics.

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

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, 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. Later that year, she competed in the 100 m and 200 m at the World Athletics Championships hosted in Doha, Qatar.

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.

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). 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, 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. On 4 June she was part of a 4 x 100m relay team which set a new NZ 4 x 100m record (breaking the record she had helped set in April).

Hobbs first broke the Oceania 100 m record on 7 June 2022 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). Hobbs made the final of the 100m at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England, initially finishing sixth but was later upgraded to fifth place after the original fifth placegetter was disqualified for a doping offence.

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. 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. Five days later, at the Sir Graeme Douglas International meet in Auckland, she lowered her New Zealand all-comers' record to 11.02 s.

On 2 July 2023, 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, where she placed ninth in 11.18 s.

On 2 March 2024, Hobbs qualified for the Final of the 2024 World Athletics Indoor Championships women's 60 metres race where she finished fourth in a new Oceanian Record of 7.06s.

Awards
Hobbs won the Sportswoman of the Year award at the Taranaki Sports Awards in 2022 and 2023 and won the overall sportsperson award in 2023.