MELBOURNE :Still “Australia’s fastest man”, Patrick Johnson will watch with interest as a crop of young sprinters look to take down the 100 metres record he has held for over 20 years at national athletics championships in Perth this week.
Johnson remains the only Australian to break the 10-second barrier, having clocked 9.93 seconds at a meet in Mito, Japan in 2003.
Now a sports administrator in his 50s, Johnson never imagined his mark could survive so long and will be happy to see it broken.
“Look, I was the first but I never wanted to be the last,” Johnson told Reuters.
“It’s nice to have a few sprinters having a look at it.”
Those on the hunt include 21-year-old Lachlan Kennedy, who ran 10.03 seconds at the Perth Track Classic a month ago despite a sluggish start out of the blocks.
Kennedy backed that up with a runner-up finish in the 60 (6.50) at the World Indoor Championships in Nanjing, and upset Australia’s 17-year-old sensation Gout Gout in the 200 at the recent Maurie Plant Meet in Melbourne.
Kennedy will go head-to-head with Rohan Browning, who set Australia’s second-fastest 100 time of 10.01 seconds at the Tokyo Olympics.
Gout, who ran 10.04 with an illegal wind at the Australian schools championship last December, will run the 100 in the under-20 event.
BUDDING RIVALRIES
While Australia has never been a force in global men’s sprinting, the budding rivalries and emerging talent have seen interest spike in local athletics after the Paris Olympics.
Australia won seven athletics medals at Paris, the nation’s best Olympic haul since Melbourne 1956.
The Maurie Plant Meet drew 10,000 people to Lakeside stadium to watch the Gout-Kennedy showdown in the 200 the first sell-out crowd for a one-day athletics event in Australia in over 20 years.
With Australia hosting the Olympics in Brisbane 2032, Johnson is enjoying the hype around sprinting, and recalls a similar buzz when he and Matt Shirvington battled in the 100.
Five-times national champion Shirvington held Australia’s record of 10.03 seconds for five years before the late-blooming Johnson snatched it.
It was a crushing blow for Shirvington, who had been obsessed with breaking the 10-second barrier and was known for driving a Saab with “SUB-10S” on the number plates.
The goal proved unattainable for the runner nicknamed “Shirvo”, who retired in 2008.
Johnson said expectations can be a millstone for sprinters.
He carried his own after he ran 9.88 seconds with an illegal wind at a meet in Perth in early-2003.
“I expected I was going to smash it but conditions weren’t right. I went the whole (domestic) season, only losing one race,” he said.
“The only time I did (the record) was when I went to Japan after having a little bit of rest following some heavy training.”
Like Shirvington, the 10-second barrier is on Kennedy’s mind.
He has tipped that he will break it in Perth and wants to beat Gout in the race to become Australia’s first to run the 200 in under 20 seconds.
He will have a re-match with Gout, who ran 20.04 at the schools meet in December to eclipse Peter Norman’s long-standing national record.
Johnson will welcome another Australian in the 10-second club but says the next one will need to be ready for the pressure that comes with it, particularly with an Olympics on the horizon.
“There’s always going to be hype with new talent,” he said.
“We like to jump on our stars.”
