Lewis smashes her own Australian 100m record at worlds

John Salvado | September 13, 2025

Australian sprinter Torrie Lewis has smashed her own national 100m record to storm into the semi-finals on day one of the world athletics championships in Tokyo.

Lewis made light of being drawn in the hardest of the seventh heats, flying out of the blocks on Saturday and holding her form in the closing stages to clock 11.08 seconds.

She finished a close third behind defending world champ Sha’Carri Richardson from the US (11.03) and Jamaican Shericka Jackson (11.04), who has won the past two world 200m titles.

The 20-year-old Lewis stripped two-hundredths of a second from her previous national record of 11.10 set last year in Canberra, with the promise of even better to come in Sunday’s semi-finals.

“I was super nervous before this competition because I knew in training that these are the times I can hit,” she said.

“Actually this is the slowest time in my mind that I had, so hopefully I can build on that.”

With only the top three in each heat advancing to the semis – and four sub-11-second runners in the field – Lewis had no margin for error.

“It was like ‘thanks guys for giving me the hardest one’,” she said of her immediate reaction to the heat draw.

“But after I let it sink in I was very glad I had them because I can run with them, and who cares if they beat me, because they’re the best in the world ever, almost.

“So I just wanted to run as fast as I could with them and see how I go.”

Fellow Australians Bree Rizzo and Ella Connolly were eliminated in the opening round. 

Reigning Olympic champion Julien Alfred from St Lucia led the qualifiers in 10.93.

Looking every inch the runner who claimed a historic silver at last year’s Paris Olympics, Jessica Hull was a commanding winner of the first of three women’s 1500m heats.

Hull sat near the front for the duration of the race and covered all moves in the final straight to win in 4:04.40.

She will be joined in Sunday’s semi-finals by compatriot Linden Hall, who was fourth in her heat.

Australian teenager Delta Amidzovski was unable to reprise her long jump gold-medal heroics from last year’s world junior championships.

The multi-talented Amidzovski could do no better than 6.28m, well short of what was required to advance to the final in Tokyo.

Countrywoman Samantha Dale was also eliminated.