Eddie Nketia runs 100m faster than any Australian ever, but it doesn’t count

Source : ABC NEWS

Eddie Nketia has broken the Australian all-conditions record in the 100m with a time of 9.84 seconds at a meet in the United States.

But Nketia’s time will not count as a new national record, despite eclipsing Patrick Johnson’s 9.93 from 2003, because of an illegal tailwind of 2.3 metres per second.

Nketia also went faster than any other Australian over the 100m to break Johnson’s national “all conditions” record of 9.88, also run in 2003 with a tailwind of 3.6 m/s.

Any tailwind over 2.0 m/s in the 100m and 200m, and 100m and 110m hurdles renders that time illegitimate for national or international records.

Gout Gout had two sub-10-second runs ruled out last year due to an illegal tailwind.

Nketia finished second in the 100m at the Mt SAC (San Antonio College) Relays — an annual track and field meet in Walnut, California — behind Jelani Watkins (9.82 seconds).

With all eyes on Lachlan Kennedy and Gout, the 24-year-old’s run marked his emergence as another in a strong crop of Australian sprinters.

And he made clear he has loftier goals, posting “Australian record soon” on his Instagram stories above a Nike ad reading “Only a matter of time”.

With so much focus on Australian athletics of late, it may seem like Nketia has slipped under the radar.

But he was not representing Australia until December last year when he switched his allegiance from New Zealand.

Nketia has already made his first national team, named earlier this month in the 4x100m squad for the World Athletics Relays, to be held early next month in Gaborone, Botswana.

The move away from New Zealand was a big one for Nketia, who is a four-time national champion across the ditch — twice each in 100m and 200m — and holds the national New Zealand record of 10.08 seconds in the 100m.

He set that mark in the heats at the 2022 world championships in Eugene, Oregon, eclipsing the previous record set 28 years prior by his father, Augustine ‘Gus’ Nketia.

“You set an example of how kiwis can fly,” he wrote about his father after breaking the record.

“I knew it wasn’t going to be a easy road since everyone in New Zealand wanted to break your national record. There was times I wanted to quit but deep down we all know you and I would’ve been disappointed that it wasn’t me who broke the record like you wanted me to.

“All the hard work has paid off and I’m thankful that it was you that was holding it for 28 years. That [gave] me the perseverance and courage to one day break it and keep it in the Nketia family.”

Gus also switched allegiance midway through his career, jumping from Ghana, where he was born, to New Zealand in 1991 and setting the previous NZ record of 10.11 seconds as he reached the final of the 1994 Commonwealth Games.