Rising star smashes 100m time to make Aussie history

Rohan Browning has smashed his personal best to equal the fastest 100m time by an Australian on home soil and qualify for this year’s world championships.

The Sydney sprinter clocked 10.08 seconds in his first race over the distance for the season, beating his previous best by 0.11 seconds to finish second behind Japan’s Yoshihide Kiryu in the Queensland Track Classic on Saturday.

Kiryu recorded the same time as Browning while Jack Hale (10.19) also ran a personal best to take third as runners took advantage of a legal 2.0 tailwind at Brisbane’s State Athletic Centre.

Patrick Johnson (9.93) and Matt Shirvington (10.03) are the only Australians to have run 100m faster than Browning, who missed last year’s Commonwealth Games final by less than one-hundredth of a second.

That pair boast the eight fastest times by Australians, but only Josh Ross (10.08 in Brisbane 12 years ago) has run that fast at home.

Browning’s 10.08 is the fastest time by an Australian anywhere since Ross set that mark in 2007.

“I was always hoping (to run that fast). Training’s been going great, I was confident,” he said.

“The thing was I’ve been chatting a lot of s*** to Jack Hale, so if I didn’t I was going to be in all sorts of strife.”

A self-confessed fan of team sports, Browning credited the camaraderie among the current batch of sprint talents for pushing him to new heights.

“I wasn’t a born individual sport athlete, I had to learn to love it,” he said.

“When I started winning races … I thought maybe this is for me.

“But definitely; this is exactly where I saw myself (when he woke up this morning).”

It gives Browning the bragging rights ahead of next month’s national titles whether he likes it or not.

“I prefer the underdog status, but it’s nice to be in the hot seat,” he said.

The 10.08 runs settled Browning and Kiryu into equal third on the top 100m sprints for 2019, behind Cubans Roberto Skyers (9.98) and Reynier Mena (10.04).

Earlier in the night Browning teamed with Hale, Alex Hartmann and Jake Doran to clock an impressive 38.83 in the 4x100m relay.

Steve Solomon, Tyler Gunn, Alex Beck and Ian Halpin elated the crowd on the night’s final race, clocking three minutes 3.67 seconds in the 4x400m relay to qualify for the world championships.

Brooke Stratton (6.74m) posted another world championship qualifier to win the long jump from Naa Anang (6.69), who will also be in Doha later this year.

Matthew Denny threw a season-best 64.85m in the discus, just shy of the 65m needed for qualification.

Commonwealth Games champion Brandon Starc was halted at 2.12m in his high jump return as New Zealand’s Hamish Kerr (2.24m) won in a countback from South Korea’s Sanghyeok Woo.

with AAP