When Lachie Kennedy crouched on the blocks in Nairobi on the weekend, the sprinting sensation felt made for this magical moment. Firing off the blocks, he whistled like the wind when becoming just the second Australian to break 10 seconds over 100 metres. Given the enormity of that feat, it overshadowed the actual result of his booming 9.98 second sprint, namely winning the Kip Keino Classic. Watch the biggest Aussie sports & the best from overseas LIVE on Kayo Sports | New to Kayo? Get your first month for just $1. Limited time offer. After showing the type of speed F1 wizard Oscar Piastri would be proud of, Kennedy declared he was only going to get better. An immediate goal is to break iconic sprinter Patrick Johnson’s Australian record of 9.93sec. Should he continue to sizzle, a berth in the final of the 100m at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo in September beckons. Kennedy has no doubt he belongs. “It is pretty exciting, but I don’t feel like there has ever been a moment that is too big for me,” he told foxsports.com.au in an interview prior to his historic run . “All I have felt is that I am right there. I was made for these meets. I was made to run against the world’s best. “It has just helped me with my confidence. I don’t think this is my peak at all, yet I am still in the mix. I don’t think I am going to be overawed by any competition really.” In the midst of a surge in Australian athletes excelling on the international stage , Kennedy emerged over the last summer as a shooting star in a discipline that is considered the blue riband event in track and field. He astounded over 60m in China in January when a silver medallist in the World Indoor Championships. He edged Gout Gout in a phenomenal 200m at the marvellous Maurie Plant Meeting in Melbourne. And now he has a legal run under 10 seconds. This is a man who is on the move. And he is doing so more swiftly than any Australian sprinter other than Johnson. “I am racing to win. I am racing the clock. I race against time,” he said. “I would happily come last and run a PB rather than come first and run a really slow time. It is all about improvement. Improvement in every race. Of course I want to win … but it is all about improvement and being consistent in my eyes.” A DEFENSIVE LIABILITY PUSHES A SMART SWITCH Watching Kennedy hurtling down the runway in Nairobi was like watching a boulder gathering momentum. He was a ball of muscle. But that was not always the case for the University of Queensland student who recently helped the nation’s relay team qualify for Tokyo. Through his teens, the Brisbane resident was so slight in stature that he ultimately thought it was wise to walk away from rugby and focus on sharpening his speed. The fast twitch muscles he is possessed with prompted him to make the smartest of shifts. “I was good at both track and rugby, but I didn’t like getting hit, to be honest,” he said. “In hindsight, I was heaps better at track than I was at footy. I probably thought I was better at footy than I actually was. I was just fast and being fast only takes you so far. “I was really skinny back when I was in Year 8 and Year 9, definitely skinnier and smaller than my teammates. But I was never slow. I was always the fastest person on the footy field. But I definitely didn’t have the build of those big fellas. “I was more the one opposition guys thought they could exploit a little bit. I was a bit of a defensive liability but I took a few people by surprise on offence, I reckon. But I feel like I have made the right decision.” Kennedy has always loved racing and training. The challenge for his coach Andrew Iselin has been to hold his charge back. The Queenslander has always felt invincible but is starting to understand that it is not always necessary to have his foot flat to the floor. “I have learnt a lot more about my body and how I respond to different things, to different loads, the different competitions,” he said. “I used to feel like I was a little bit invincible and that I could do as many races as I wanted to without any repercussions. But I have realised there is a benefit in stepping back, refreshing a little and getting a good bit of training in. “This year has just been a massive learning curve about how I can get better and eventually, really, I just learned that there’s nothing really holding me back.” TAKING THE P*** IN SEARCH OF PERFECTION Iselin has the keys to an athletic Ferrari in Kennedy. But sports cars need caring for and one of the challenges associated with the Aussie has been learning how to ease off the throttle. “He sometimes thinks that I need to be held back, because I don’t really like to have recovery weeks,” Kennedy said. “I feel like I want to run fast every session, to let go every session, but obviously the coach knows best, so I try to listen to him. I trust his judgement and it has clearly worked out so far.” There is no but about that. From being a member of the relay team in Paris last year, Kennedy’s star is now in orbit alongside names including Gout Gout , Jessica Hull and Nina Kennedy as high-profile Australian athletes. His form and speed dictate that. Kennedy speaks with confidence. But he does not have a big head. Far from it, and there is a good reason for that. His training mates back in Brisbane, including his best mate Calab Law, would never allow the engineering and commerce student to get away with it. “Obviously the fellas in the training group, we all take the piss and try not to take ourselves too seriously,” Kennedy said. “There’s no hierarchy in training. We’re just people that hang out together. Everyone’s equal. It’s very chill and a lot of fun and everyone brings someone to our training group that’s important. “My coach is very good at making it feel casual, even when it is serious and very switched on. He has trained us in a way where a lot of the session is about us and how we are feeling, we are at, where as a lot of coaches are like, ‘It is my way or the highway.’ “He is very good at reading the vibe of training and altering the session depending on what he is seeing. He will push us when he has to, but he certainly knows how to hold it back a bit as well, and he’s very good at making crap jokes that make people laugh.” IN PURSUIT OF EXCELLENCE Kennedy has no issue with the hype surrounding Gout, saying that the curve the Ipswich Grammar student is otherworldly. The pair get on well with each other but the competitive instincts in the rising stars of the track, and the quality of athletes they raced through the domestic season, has helped sharpen his racing nous and harden him for the international summer ahead. “It is definitely a rivalry, for sure. And that includes Calab, Rohan (Browning) and everyone in that. Even if it is a friendly rivalry, I don’t plan to lose to anyone, even if they are Australian or international,” Kennedy said. “I’m not taking it easy ever. Be it if I am racing against mates or people overseas, the mindset is the same. It is always about winning. It is about racing against time. “I can be friends with (Gout) and I can be friendly to them, but on the track it is all about running my best race and winning the race.” Kennedy edged Paris Olympics relay silver medallist Bayanda Walaza from South Africa (10.03) and local gun Ferdinand Omanyala (10.07) in the dash to the line in Kenya and now heads to Ostrava in the Czech Republic for the Golden Spike meet on June 24, with Gout also slated to compete. But he will continue his engineering and commerce studies while abroad, saying it is an essential part of ensuring he has a good balance in his life. “It is very important. The studies, itself, are less important to me, but personally it’s more that I have something else outside of athletics,” he said. “I think it is essential that your whole focus itself, and this is for any sporting endeavour, it can’t be all about your sport … because sport doesn’t last forever. You have got to have a backup plan. You have to keep yourself entertained, because you can get real wound up with the numbers and how the body’s feeling, with all the comps and all these things, all the stuff online. “The study itself is very difficult, but I’m making it through. It is a heavy program, but I am working through it. Finding time to do it is the challenge, and the Wifi overseas sometimes can, honestly, suck. So that can get very frustrating.” But the surrounds on his European tour will temper any undue emotions, he said. Kennedy will use the Australian Athletics training base in northern Italy while in Europe for the Diamond League series and said there are benefits to being in Europe in an Aussie winter. “It is pretty wicked training over there, I can’t lie,” he said.
Source: Fox Sports