{"id":504991,"date":"2026-06-22T06:15:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T06:15:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/504991\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T06:15:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T06:15:15","slug":"eddie-nketia-to-make-australia-debut-after-commonwealth-games-sprint-selection-commonwealth-games-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/504991\/","title":{"rendered":"Eddie Nketia to make Australia debut after Commonwealth Games sprint selection | Commonwealth Games 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Australian sprint sensation Eddie Nketia is talking up his potential to run even faster at the Commonwealth Games after a succession of eye-catching times.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Nketia will make his Australian debut in Glasgow after switching late last year from New Zealand. He is one of the headline names in the 86-athlete track and field team named on Monday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The 25-year-old\u2019s performances in the last few months have featured <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/sport\/2026\/may\/18\/eddie-nketia-100m-australian-sprint-record-close\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a wind-assisted 9.74 seconds<\/a> for the blue-riband 100m. The Commonwealth Games record is Usain Bolt\u2019s 9.88 seconds, set at Glasgow in 2014. Bolt set the world record of 9.58 in 2009.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Asked at the team announcement if he can run faster, Nketia replied: \u201cI would love to \u2013 I want to run as fast as I can. If we can get a 9.6, we get a 9.6, if we can get the world record, we get the world record. But it\u2019s just going to start from execution.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Glasgow teammate Lachie Kennedy holds the Australian record of 9.98.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The athletics selections complete the Australian team for Glasgow, with 258 competitors across 10 sports.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Discus star Matt Denny, milers Ollie Hoare and Jessica Hull, pole vaulters Nina Kennedy and Kurtis Marschall and race walker Jemima Montag are other big names in the athletics team.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">While Gout Gout opted out of the Games, Nketia and Kennedy will spearhead a powerful Australian contingent in the men\u2019s sprint events.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cIt\u2019s beautiful &#8230; the future\u2019s bright and it\u2019s going to be awesome, seeing what I can do for the green and gold,\u201d Nketia said. \u201cSeeing Gout Gout, Lachie Kennedy \u2013 it\u2019s not just Glasgow, [but] the future. The relay, the depth, it\u2019s just going to do wonders for the future of &#8230; sprinting.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Australian <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/sport\/athletics\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Athletics<\/a> CEO Simon Hollingsworth said the selections reflected both performance excellence and consistency across the qualification period.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cThis team has been selected off the back of outstanding performances across the season, including major championships and international meets,\u201d Hollingsworth said. \u201cIt\u2019s a group that has shown they can compete and win at the highest level, and we are confident they will represent Australia with distinction in Glasgow.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australian sprint sensation Eddie Nketia is talking up his potential to run even faster at the Commonwealth Games&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":504992,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":["post-504991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=504991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}