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Australian sprinter Torrie Lewis has made light of a stacked field and a headwind to smash her own national 100m record and storm into the semi-finals on day one of the world athletics championships in Tokyo.
Lining up against defending world champion Sha’Carri Richardson from the US, two-time world 200m champ Shericka Jackson from Jamaica and two other runners with career sub-11 second PBs, Lewis could well have been overwhelmed.
Instead she was inspired.
The 20-year-old flew out of the blocks on Saturday and held her form in the closing stages to clock 11.08 seconds into a 0.8m per second headwind.
She finished a close third behind Richardson (11.03) and Jackson (11.04), with only the top three in each heat guaranteed to advance.
Lewis stripped two-hundredths of a second from her previous national record of 11.10 set last year in Canberra, with the promise of even better to come in Sunday’s semi-finals.
“I was super nervous before this competition because I knew in training that these are the times I can hit,” she said.
“Actually this is the slowest time in my mind that I had, so hopefully I can build on that.”
Lewis was proud of how she handled the cards she was dealt in the heats.
“It was like ‘thanks guys for giving me the hardest one’,” she said.
“But after I let it sink in I was very glad I had them because I can run with them, and who cares if they beat me, because they’re the best in the world ever, almost.
“So I just wanted to run as fast as I could with them and see how I go.”
Jessica Hull wins 1500m heat
Looking every inch the runner who claimed a historic silver at last year’s Paris Olympics, Jessica Hull was a commanding winner of the first of three women’s 1500m heats.
Hull sat near the front for the duration of the race and covered all moves in the final straight to win in 4:04.40.
She will be joined in Sunday’s semi-finals by compatriot Linden Hall, who was fourth in her heat.
Hull appeared unfazed by her surprising loss at the Diamond League final in Zurich, where she ran out of steam and was narrowly beaten at the finish by Kenyan Nelly Chepchirchir.
Jessica Hull kept a close eye on the chasing pack as she won her 1500m heat at the world titles. Source: AP / Matthias Schrader
“It’s hard when it’s the first race after something like that so I definitely was a little bit more intuitive in my body,” she said.
“I wanted to feel what I was feeling and just trust it.
“I had the gears I thought I would have when I was fully tapered and fresh.”
