Everything was almost right. The weather was warm, not hot. The wind, for the women’s race, was at their backs. The stands were full. Bruce McAvaney was commentating.
If it were the AFL, they’d call it retro round – the time when Cathy was queen and athletics was cool. Ten thousand people filled Lakeside Stadium.
Lachlan Kennedy beats Rohan Browning in the men’s 100 metres in front of 10,000 people at Lakeside Stadium.Credit: Luke Hemer
The only thing missing, early on at least for the main event (Gout Gout in the 200 metres was to be the last event of the night), was that coveted time we so dearly hoped would flash on the screen. It’s the time that, for the men’s 100m, might start with a nine.
It didn’t.
Gout Gout was the man they all came to see at Lakeside Stadium.Credit: Luke Hemer
Where for the women’s 100m there was a slight tailwind, by the time of the men’s race was run five minutes later it was a slight headwind. Just -1.1 metres per second but it is enough when the margins are so wafer-thin.
So for Lachie Kennedy who felt, with the right conditions, he might break 10 seconds on any track, this was not the night for those sorts of historic heroics, but he did claim the win.
A powerful starter, which is unsurprising for a man who just won world silver over 60 metres, Kennedy had the jump on the field and was never headed. He won in 10.17 seconds from Seb Sultana in 10.29s.
The teasing thing of the night was that Letsile Tebogo, the Paris Olympics 200m gold medallist, was not here to run the 200m, and therefore running against Gout Gout. He was running the 400m. So, yeah, it was nice to see him run, but it’s like going to see Pat Cummins play and he decides to bowl off-spin.
Still Tebogo, and his Botswana teammates put on a show with Bayapo Ndori (45.14s) stealing the moment from Tebogo, who could not quite rein him in, coming in second in 45.26s.
“Australian athletics is really popping off – everyone is running quick and everyone wants to put on a show,” Seb Sultana said after coming second to Kennedy in the 100m.
Popping off, indeed. It was the biggest domestic athletics meet since 2001, with standing room-only at the sellout crowd at Lakeside.
A measure of the surge in popularity for the event off the back largely of the stunning arrival of Gout Gout, Channel seven broadcast the event live on its main channel from 7pm. McAvaney commentated – the call taken live to the stadium. It made it sound, ahem, special.
Among that packed crowd to witness Gout run live in Melbourne against men was athletics royalty, Sydney Olympic 400m gold medallist Cathy Freeman.
Olympic semi-finalist Rohan Browning, who is building to his peak again after largely overcoming a knee problem that had cost him more than a year of racing, finished third in the 100m in 10.3 seconds behind Kennedy and Sultana.
“Obviously these guys are running really strong at the moment, I have to improve between now and nationals,” Browning said.
“I want to win the national championships, make the worlds team, and then hopefully be a contender, but I know I have to be a lot quicker.”
In the women’s 100m race run earlier, Paris Olympics semi finalist Rizzo (nee Masters) won the women’s comfortably in 11.35s.
After a slow start, Rizzo, who was the first Australian woman to make an Olympic semi-final in 24 years when she advanced from the heats in Paris, had too much class for the field, beating Chloe Mannix-Power who ran 11.52s.
World championships bronze medallist Mackenzie Little was upstaged in the javelin, finishing second with a throw of 59.66m behind Lianna Davidson with 61.66m.
Paris Olympic bronze medallist Matt Denny was always likely to be competing against himself which was how it paned out has he won the discus with a throw of 68.17m, nearly four metres further than British thrower Lawrence Okoye.
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 Browning, who ran 10.01s at the Tokyo Olympics, and Patrick Johnson with 9.93s in 2003, are quicker. Browning will also run in Melbourne on Saturday night.
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