03 Mar 2009

Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) athlete Tristan Thomas has recorded the second fastest time ever by an Australian in the men’s 400-metre hurdles, on Saturday 28 February 2009 at the Sydney Track Classic.

Thomas was in front from start to finish, recording a personal best of 48.86 seconds and beating 2008 Olympic Games bronze medallist Bershawn Jackson (49.06) and 2006 Commonwealth Games champion LJ van Zyl (50.42).

He was delighted by the win and relished competing against some of the world’s best:

It’s incredible, amazing, you can only run great times with great people around you. It’s a real honour to race against people like Bershawn — and after the race he was  really happy for me.'

The 22-year-old Thomas was only 0.58 of a second short of beating the current Australian record-holder’s time: 48.28 seconds, recorded by Rohan Robinson at the Atlanta 1996 Olympic Games.

Thomas, who was coached by 2007 AIS Coach of the Year Craig Hilliard, is in fine form having already recorded the A-qualifier time of 49.25 seconds (a previous personal best) for the world championships, at last month’s Australian Capital Territory Championships.

It has been a great start to the year for AIS track and field athletes, with Olympic dual medallist Jared Tallent breaking the Australian record in the 5km walk and the 19-year-old Kurt Mulcahy recording a personal best and B-qualifier world championship time of 45.84 seconds in the 400-metre sprint.

Thomas will be looking to continue his winning streak at the Grand Prix Melbourne Track Classic on 5 March, before turning his focus to the IAAF World Championships in Athletics, which takes place in Berlin from 15–23 August 2009.