Australian teen sensation beats world’s fastest woman in Diamond League triumph
By Ian Chadband
Australia’s fastest woman, Torrie Lewis, has made another stunning sprint breakthrough in the run-up to the Olympics by beating the world 100-metre champ and powering to a stunning triumph in the 200 metres at the season’s opening Diamond League meeting in China.
On a night in Xiamen when Armand Duplantis was setting another world pole vault record of 6.24 metres, Australia’s own soaring star led the undercard with her brilliant half-lap victory over two American stars.
Torrie Lewis reacts after her win.Credit: Luke Howard/Diamond League
After her star-making home-based campaign, when she became the Australian 100-metre record holder with her 11.10-second run in Canberra in January, 19-year-old Lewis made it an individual Diamond League debut to remember on Saturday.
“I honestly didn’t notice I’d won until I saw the replay and I was like holy ...”
She clinched a wholly unexpected win from way out in lane nine, beating her idol, 100-metre world champion Sha’Carri Richardson, and Tamara Clark after a fine start.
“Not at all!” beamed the Newcastle youngster, when asked after the photo finish if she believed before the race that she could win.
Clocking 22.96 to pip Richardson by just 0.03 of a second, while Clark was timed at 23.01, the English-born Lewis celebrated the second quickest 200 metres of her career.
It also edged her closer to Raelene Boyle’s 56-year-old Australian under-20 record as well as the Olympic qualifying standard of 22.57.
“It was so surreal beating Sha’Carri. I didn’t even notice I beat them until I saw the replay and I was like, ‘Holy crap!’ So surreal!” Lewis said.
“My goal was to just hold on as long as I could. I was in lane nine, so I knew they would all be in front of me by 50 or 60 metres, but I just wanted to do as well as I could.
World No.1 Sha’Carri Richardson.Credit: Reuters
“I’ve come here straight from the nationals, knowing this was my opponents’ season-opener, so I knew I had an edge coming in, but I just wasn’t entirely sure because I had never raced those athletes before.”
There were other Australian performances to savour, with Georgia Griffith and Sarah Billings becoming the fourth and fifth Australian women, respectively, to clock sub-four-minute times in the 1500 metres, while Linden Hall joined them.
Griffith ran three minutes, 59.04 seconds to claim sixth, followed by teammate Billings who recorded a seven-second personal best 3:59.59 in ninth, while Hall was timed at 4:00.71 in 10th. All were all inside the 4:02.50 Olympic qualifying standard.
But it was a disappointing return to international action for Peter Bol, who could finish only 11th of 12 runners while clocking 1:47.02 in the 800 metres, in his first overseas race since last year’s world championships in Budapest.
Up ahead, Canada’s Marco Arop ran the fastest two-lap time in the world this year with his 1:43.61 victory.
It was a tough night, too, for Olympic finalist Stewart McSweyn, who just missed out on the 13:05.00 qualifying standard for Paris while finishing 10th in 13:05.18.
Joel Baden cleared 2.24 metres in the high jump, but a miss at 2.20 meant he missed the podium places on countback in an event won by American Shelby McEwan.
Another Diamond League debutant Ellie Beer finished fifth in the 400 metres, clocking 52.36 behind Dominican winner Marileidy Paulino, while Australian record holder Kathryn Mitchell, seeking a fourth Olympic appearance, finished sixth in the javelin with a 55.57-metre throw behind home winner Qianqian Dai.
AAP
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