Queensland sprinter Lachlan Kennedy has done what no other Australian has ever managed on home soil, running under 10 seconds in the men’s 100 metres.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The 22-year-old produced a blistering run of 9.96 seconds in the first heat at the Australian Athletics Championships in Sydney.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Honestly, I didn’t really even expect it. I was just super relaxed, not cruisy, I was definitely pushing it, but it just felt easy,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I think I got a bit more in the tank, but good to see I’m in good form.<\/p>\n
“Honoured to be the first to do it [in Australia]. I’m sure we’ll have way more in the future.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“No-one can ever take that away from you, so I’m certainly glad it was me.”<\/p>\n
It was a still, balmy night, with a tailwind of +0.2, and Kennedy capitalised on the ideal conditions, to break 10 seconds for the second time in his career.\u00a0<\/p>\n
His previous personal best was 9.98 set in Kenya in May 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He was justifiably pumped after the race, jumping and celebrating with his fellow competitors.<\/p>\n
And while he lapped up the achievement, he knows he hasn’t achieved what he set out to do yet.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I think I’ve got so much more to give \u2026 but we’re off to a cracking start,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Of all the conditions, today is probably the best objectively, but at the end of the day, I’m here to win that national final.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I’m here to get my first national championship, so saving the best for tomorrow.”<\/p>\n
Loading Instagram content<\/p>\n
Kennedy will be the raging favourite for tomorrow’s semis and then final, with Patrick Johnson’s long-standing national record of 9.93 seconds well within his reach. \u00a0<\/p>\n
“I don’t like to put a ceiling on what I can do, but I’ll hopefully try and break that Aussie record tomorrow,” he said.<\/p>\n
Kennedy will also take on Gout Gout in the men’s 200 metres in one of the most anticipated showdowns of the meet.<\/p>\n
Top 5 all-time Australian men’s 100 metre timesTimeNameDate9.93Patrick JohnsonMay 5, 20039.96Lachlan KennedyApril 10, 20269.98Lachlan KennedyMay 31, 202510.00Gout GoutFebruary 21, 202610.01Rohan BrowningJuly 31, 2021<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Queensland sprinter Lachlan Kennedy has done what no other Australian has ever managed on home soil, running under…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":598659,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[291956,64,63,291953,16741,291957,280397,291954,72454,85,291955],"class_list":{"0":"post-598658","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-10-second-barrier","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-athletics-championships","12":"tag-gout-gout","13":"tag-lachie-kennedy","14":"tag-lachlan-kennedy","15":"tag-national-athletics-championships","16":"tag-patrick-johnson","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-sub-10-seconds"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=598658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/598659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}