Rising Australian sprinting sensation Torrie Lewis has produced another rapid run over 60 metres as she tours Europe in the build-up to the world athletics indoor championships.
And according to the owner of Melbourne Track Club, the agency that looks after the 20-year-old phenom, she is capable of this year becoming the first Australian woman to crack the 11-second barrier in the 100 metres.
Lewis clocked 7.23 seconds in both the heats and the final of the 60m at the Czech Indoor Gala in Ostrava on Wednesday (AEDT). The prodigious sprinter only finished fourth in the final in Ostrava, but two of the three women who beat her have run the fastest 60m times of the ongoing indoor season.
At the first stop of Lewis' European tour, the Belgrade Indoor Meeting in late January, she had laid down 60m times of 7.23 in the heats and 7.14 in the final.
The latter of those times set a new Australian record.
Torrie Lewis is introduced for a 200m race in New York City in September 2024. Getty
At this stage, it appears it was a masterful decision to relocate to the Netherlands following the Paris Olympics to train under highly regarded sprint coach Laurent Meuwly.
"It was a big decision for her to go overseas and train with Laurent Meuwly … but so far it's worked out," Nic Bideau, the owner of Melbourne Track Club, told Wide World of Sports.
"She's definitely starting better. She's consistent; 7.14 is her fastest, 7.23 is her slowest [this season], so she's been within a tenth of a second from four 60m races so far.
"And it looks like to me that in the European summer season [this year] she will be running under 11 seconds [in the 100m], and she would be the first Australian woman to do that. She's already the Australian record holder."
Lewis clocked 11.10 seconds in the 100m in Canberra in January last year to shatter a national record that had stood for 10 years, breaking Melissa Breen's mark by 0.01 of a second.
The only event Lewis contested as an individual athlete at the Paris Games was the 200m, but Bideau said she would likely add to her program at September's world championships in Tokyo.
"I would think that this year — she has to earn her spot and get selected — it's possible for her to do the 100m and 200m in Tokyo," Bideau said.
Before Lewis races at September's world championships, the Queenslander will head to the Chinese city of Nanjing for the world indoor championships, where she's expected to compete in the 60m.
Torrie Lewis in action at the Paris Olympics. Getty
Another Australian sprinter running swift times in the 60m is 21-year-old Lachlan Kennedy.
In Canberra in late January, the former junior rugby speedster blazed through a 60m race in 6.43 seconds to shatter Matt Shirvington's national record, bettering the 6.52 posted by Shirvington in the Japanese city of Maebashi in 1999.
At the inaugural Australian short-track championships, held in Sydney at the weekend, Kennedy again eclipsed Shirvington's best mark when he took victory with a time of 6.51.
Lewis and Kennedy have both recorded world indoor championship qualifiers.
"It's not often you see guys win those short races by that margin," Bideau said of Kennedy's recent 60m wins.
"There's daylight between him and the other guys, and we're not talking about donkeys. Josh Azzopardi got out of his heat at the Olympics [in the 100m]. He was a semi-finalist. So we're talking about quality athletes. He [Kennedy] has been able to put daylight between him and them. So that's really impressive."
