EDITORIAL: Australia’s sprinting stars shine in Perth as young guns chase Olympic glory ahead of Brisbane 2032

Patrick Johnson. Peter Norman. Raelene Boyle. Cathy Freeman. These have been some of the biggest names in Australian sprinting — the all-time legends whose feats on the track were marvelled at by the rest of us mere mortals. Now, with a home Olympics just seven years away, a clutch of talented young guns is racing to join them in our pantheon of sprinting greats. And this week their remarkable talents are on show here in Perth, as the city plays host to the Australian Athletics Championships. Records have already come tumbling down, before senior competition even begins. Seventeen-year old Leah O’Brien clocked 11.14s at the junior competition on Tuesday to wipe Boyle’s national under-18 100m record from the history books. It’s a record that had stood for a heroic 57 years. Now, it belongs to the teen from Perth. Her time on Tuesday was the equal-fourth fastest ever recorded by an Australian woman, putting her on equal footing with hurdling legend Sally Pearson. She’s among exalted company already. And O’Brien’s just getting started. She’ll will be back racing on Friday. This time, against the open women. She’ll be pitted against another Aussie rising star (and one of O’Brien’s personal heroes), Torrie Lewis. Lewis, 20, is already Australia’s fastest ever woman, having set a national record of 11.10s in the 100m last year. She has a crop of talented youngsters at her heels, including Perth 14-year Emilia Reed, who last month ran the fastest ever 100m by an Under-16 Australian girl, deleting Lewis’s junior record set in 2020. The boys and men are setting a blistering pace too. At just 17, Gout Gout is already a household name in Australia. His freakish abilities on the track have earned him comparisons to Usain Bolt, the undisputed greatest of all time. His Australian record of 20.04s in the 200m set last year — faster even than Bolt at the same age — marked him out as one of Australian athletics’ best prospects. So it’s revealing that he has to jostle for attention against a crowd of other up and comers determined to make their marks. Gout’s fellow Queenslander Lachlan Kennedy beat him the last time the pair went head-to-head in the 200m, in Melbourne at the Maurie Plant Meet last month. And it’s much more than just bragging rights on the line. Both are hoping to break the 10 second barrier. “I’m aiming for a sub-10 time for sure,” Kennedy said. “In one of the rounds, I’ll do it and then I want to try and break the Australian record in the 100m and I really want to go for 19 seconds in the 200m. It’s clear we are on the cusp of an Australian sprinting renaissance. This golden generation of speedsters can push each other to even greater heights, faster than what would otherwise have been possible. And when Brisbane 2032 rolls around, Perth sports fans will be able to brag about when the time they saw them way back when.