Australian teenage sprinting sensation Torrie Lewis has claimed the title of Australia’s fastest-ever woman after beating the national 100-metre record with an astounding time of 11.10 seconds in Canberra over the weekend.
The 19-year-old ran one hundredth of a second faster than the previous mark of 11.11 set by Melissa Breen 10 years ago at the same Australian Institute of Sport track.
Having become the fastest Australian woman means Lewis also simultaneously beat the previous Australian under-20 record of 11.20, set by the great Raelene Boyle during the 1968 Olympics.
“That was the one that I was aiming for this year,” Lewis told The Project, about beating the under-20 record.
“So, to get both of them in one go… pretty good,” she said.
“I actually don’t really like the [100m event], I much prefer the [200m], so it was a big surprise.”
“I didn’t even hear the announcer. I heard the crowd gasp, so I thought ‘Oh I hope it’s a good time’ and then the announcer said something, but I didn’t hear anything. And then all the girls on the track were like running up and were like ‘Oh my god, you broke the record!’”, Lewis said, noting how shocked she was that it was the “big one”– the fastest Australian women’s record.
With the Paris Olympics coming up this year, Lewis says she’s three one-hundredths of a second off from getting the auto-qualifier in the 100m event. She says it’s her number one target for 2024, to make the Paris Olympics, but will also have her sights set on contesting the world under-20 championships in Peru.
At last year’s national titles in Brisbane, Lewis ran the 100m-200m double and represented Australia in the 100m and 4x100m relay at the world championships in Budapest.
Coming into the ACT championships, the Queenslander’s previous best 100m time of 11.23 was set last year in Sydney.
Congratulating Lewis on becoming the Australian record holder for the 100m, Breen wrote on the platform X (formerly Twitter), that “records are made to be broken”.
“It’s been an absolute honour & privilege to be the Australian record holder of the 100m for almost a decade. Congratulations Torrie Lewis, coach Andrew Iselin & your entire team. The baton is now yours, carry it with pride & purpose every day.”
Highlighting this generational baton passing, both Breen– 100m record holder from 2014-2024 and Melinda Gainsford-Taylor– the 100m record holder from 1994-2014 and still 200m record holder– joined Lewis at AIS Track and Field Centre to celebrate her historic achievement.