Lachlan Kennedy walks on the track now, any track, and thinks: “I can break 10 seconds”.
The Australian 100-metre sprinter, who last week won silver in the 60m at the world indoor championships, has the confidence that he belongs among the world’s best – and that it is only a matter of time before the gets “the time”.
Lachlan Kennedy thinks he could run the 100m in less than 10s this weekend.Credit: Getty Images
He believes he can break the 10-second barrier this weekend in Melbourne at the Maurie Plant Meet.
While indoors running and the 60m distance are rarities in Australia, Kennedy was up against a world-class field last weekend. He missed gold by just 0.01s when he ran 6.50s, but still beat South Africa’s Akani Simbine, who took bronze. Simbine was fifth in the Rio Olympics 100m final.
In January this year, Kennedy broke the national and Oceania records for the 60m.
Patrick Johnson remains the only Australian to have legally broken the 10-second barrier in the 100m, but the medal and the quality of the field leave Kennedy confident that breaking 10s will happen this year.
“For sure it could happen Saturday night if the conditions are right,” said Kennedy, who has the braggadocio of the sprinter and the pace to match.
“I think there’s no track where I can’t run sub-10.
“It’s just about executing the race and trust in the process and hopefully conditions present themselves. We should be able to do something special.”
Kennedy ran a 100m in 10.03s in Perth earlier this year, putting him alongside Matt Shirvington as the third-quickest Australian 100m sprinter ever. Only Rohan Browning, who ran 10.01s at the Tokyo Olympics, and Johnson with 9.93s in 2003, are quicker. Browning will also run in Melbourne on Saturday night.
“My coach, Andrew [Iselin], and my team have set me up in a way where it’s possible this year, I’ve just got to execute,” Kennedy said.
“For the 100 we’ve got a great group of lads running some really incredible times this season. We’ve got multiple blokes who could crack that 10-second barrier.
“I reckon nationals [in Perth in a fortnight] is going to be an absolute field there.
“It’s going to be incredible. We all just push each other so if one person’s going fast we’re all probably going to be going fast.”
He said the 100m was the ultimate race.
“No one in Australia has done it except Patrick Johnson. So I want to be the first. All the other boys also want to be the first to do it, so there’s a lot of chirp and banter, but it’s all just fun and games. I would be happy if any other bloke broke the 10-second barrier as well but obviously, I want to do it first.”
On Saturday night Kennedy will also run the 200m head to head with teen sensation Gout Gout, who broke Peter Norman’s 200m national record in December, when he was 16. While Gout has also run a wind-assisted 10 seconds flat in the 100m, he will only compete in the 200m in Melbourne.
Letsile Tebogo, the 200m Olympic champion from Paris, will race in Melbourne this weekend, but not against Gout. Tebogo is running a 400m as part of his build-up to the world championships in Tokyo later this year.
The Botswana athlete has been impressed by Gout’s efforts but warned him to hasten slowly. He said after racing in Melbourne and Perth, the schoolboy should return to racing athletes his own age and not hurry to regularly compete against men.
“The best advice I was told [as a young athlete] was that Rome wasn’t built in a day,” Tebogo said.
“That was the best advice. I couldn’t get the concept at first, I got it later because for me and my coach, I was the fastest junior in my country. I thought, like, I didn’t have competition [among juniors] but rather [my coach] knew what he was doing, protecting me against the seniors.”
He said Gout could make history – as long as he maintained his hunger.
“He can be good enough. He can be one of the best, he could be in the history books. You know, if you continue the hunger that he is at right now, he could, he could. He could go very fast.”
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