New track, same attitude: Can Lachie Kennedy sprint to sub-10 history in Sydney?
There are usually a handful of factors that can determine if a sprinter will run a fast time at any given meet. Things like the ambient temperature (hot is better than cold), wind direction (tail, not head), the standard of competition and even the firmness of the tartan track.
Lachie Kennedy doesn’t tend to worry about any of them. He just believes – strongly – he is going to run fast. Every single race.
“He has what I like to call delusional confidence,” Kennedy’s coach Andrew Iselin jokes. “He doesn’t think anything is out of realm of possibility. It’s just how fast that is the question.”
Australia’s rising sprint star is producing numerous examples, but exhibit A may as well be Kennedy’s last 100m win at the Maurie Plant meet in Melbourne two weeks ago. It was a cool night with spitting rain, and Melbourne’s track is not known as a super-fast one. Kennedy’s hyped arch-rival Gout Gout was also not running in the race.
“I was honestly not expecting a lot. I actually said to a few people before the run in Melbourne that if he ran in the 10.1 seconds, I’d be happy,” Iselin said.
Kennedy scorched home to win in 10.03 seconds – the ninth-fastest time ever run by an Australian. Later that night, he backed it up and downed Gout in another powerhouse win in the 200m.
Jump forward a fortnight and Kennedy is back in action at the Australian Athletics national championships in Sydney, and while another duel over 200m with Gout on Sunday will get fans flocking to Sydney Olympic Park, the athletics community are just as keen to watch Kennedy in the 100m final on Saturday night.
More specifically, they’ll be watching Kennedy and the clock. The 22-year-old Queenslander is in such strong form that many are hopeful he will become the first Australian to ever run under 10 seconds (legally) on Australian soil.
It could even happen on Friday night during the 100m heats.
“I reckon it’s a chance, for sure,” Athletics Australia general manager of high-performance Andrew Faichney said. “The way we’ve seen him start this year, it’s been unbelievable. He ran 10.03 in Melbourne and it wasn’t that conducive to performance. He’s a fantastic competitor. It’d be awesome to see him flashing down here in under 10 seconds.”
Unlike senior sprinting statesman Rohan Browning, who has been stuck frustratingly above the magical 10-second mark for years, Kennedy has already cracked it; he ran 9.98 seconds in Kenya last year in a breakout season. He is only the second Aussie to ever run under 10s, after national record holder Patrick Johnson (9.93s).
The Brisbanite, a former rugby player who only began sprinting seriously in his late teens, won a silver in the world indoors over 60m, and ran a 10-flat in a heat at nationals in Perth, but finished second to Browning in the final.
A stress fracture saw him ruled out of the World Championships, but Kennedy has returned in 2026 in outstanding form and looks poised to run even faster this year,
“In some ways, having that time out and then being able to build up, is probably going to be really advantageous for him over the course of his career, and certainly, we’ll see that this season,” Faichley said.
Kennedy may not pay them much heed but some of those run-fast factors may also be favourable in Sydney. The temperature is expected to be in the mid-20 degree range on Saturday evening, winds are expected to be light and the field – though again not containing Gout – is strong, with Browning and Josh Azzopardi both in good touch.
The Sydney Olympic Park Athletic Centre has also just had a brand-new track laid, but the jury is out as to whether it will assist with sprint times. The fastest times often come on “Mondo” tracks like the one in Perth, which are hard but brutal on joints. But the two-tone blue track is a more forgiving “Rekortan” track with a gel sub-layer, to cater for the venue’s high traffic of competitions and training.
“Lachie is the type that will run fast in most places anyway. He’s just that type of athlete,” Iselin said. “Mondo helps a bit, so it might be a little bit slower than a Canberra or a Perth, but it looks pretty good.”
Only two men have ever run under 10 seconds in Australia: the gold and silver medallists at the Sydney Olympics, Maurice Greene (9.87s) and Ato Bolden (9.99s).
Gout, who ran a 10-flat in February and wind-assisted 9.96s last year, is focussing on the 200m in Sydney. Kennedy is set to race in that event, too.
Kennedy said recently he believes he can break Johnson’s 9.93s record, and though that might be not be on the cards in Sydney, his confidence about running sub-10 barrier is at its standard level: high.
“Oh yeah, definitely,” Iselin said. “I reckon we could see 9.8. He will run fast.”
Iain Payten is a senior sports reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X or email.