The schoolboy moment that launched Browning’s career
Australia’s fastest boy helped turn Rohan Browning into Australia’s fastest man, the country’s best sprinter in decades.
On Sunday night, Browning will attempt to become the first Australian man in 65 years to qualify for the Olympic 100 metres final.
But seven years ago he wasn’t even the fastest schoolboy in the country. He had just had his breakthrough run, sneaking under 11 seconds, when Tasmanian Jack Hale became the next big thing by setting a blistering 10.13 to Browning’s 10.18 at the national schools championships. Hale was younger, and he was faster.
“I was 16 and had run at the CAS championships that year and ran 10.90 seconds,” Browning told The Age and Sydney Morning Herald in an interview ahead of the Games.
“It was my first time under 11 seconds and I thought I was pretty shit-hot and Jack Hale ran 10.44 and was the age group below me and had broken the Australian youth record and became this viral sensation and it was just the biggest come down to reality.
“It definitely rained on my parade and I remember saying to Murph (coach Andrew Murphy), ‘How do I compete with that – it is half a second faster than me, that is worlds apart?’
“But I was 16. I was still growing. He just said, ‘Stick with it and keep training and be patient’.
“The penny-drop moment was shortly after that. I had this amazing progression, which I can only put down to more frequent regular training, which I had never done before, and a healthy dose of puberty and technical work and gym. It was the perfect concoction.”
Rohan Browning wins his heat. Credit:Getty Images
As teenagers Browning and Hale went head-to-head at the national schoolboys championships in Adelaide. The Age and Herald went there to watch. Ordinarily, major metropolitan newspapers don’t travel interstate to watch a schoolboys championships; you’d barely cross the road for it, but this one was different.
Australia had a generation of runners coming through. It wasn’t just about Jack Hale – who was the prime focus after he ran faster than any Australian boy had ever run – there were three others in the field who were also turning heads.
Rohan Browning, Trae Williams, and Jordan Shelley. Australia had a generation of emerging junior sprint stars.
Hale won that race but, in a portent of what was to come on Saturday night in Tokyo, it was Browning who started well and led for most of the race. Unlike back then when he was overtaken late, now Browning is bigger, stronger, more mature and ready. He was able to hold out former world champion Yohan Blake and run a personal best.
It was a superb run. On the starting blocks he fidgeted with his lycra, patted down what has suddenly become the world’s favourite mullet, and looked for all the world the small boy in Adelaide.
Except he wasn’t. He was a man. He was unperturbed by competition, by the aura and presence of the larger, more experienced, more credentialed athletes around him.
He has always been grounded. His mum, Elizabeth Jackson, was a long-time ABC journalist, his dad is a senior investigator with ICAC. He has two brothers, with whom he is very close. The family keeps his feet on the ground.
On Sunday, Liz happily revelled in her son’s brilliant Olympic effort; his mullet not so much.
He ran with a maturity that looked unlikely only seconds earlier at the blocks. He was superb. He crossed the line and he had a bit of swagger. He spoke cheekily of anti-vaxxers being better off staying at home and barracking for the underdog.
He confidently asserted that Yohan Blake was the first of the big target stars of the sport whose name he can tick off his hit list. Polite, he is. A shrinking violet, he is not.
He and coach Andrew Murphy, a three-time Olympian, always had a quiet confidence they were primed for these Games and would surprise the world. They stayed home when some thought racing in Europe would be better. They worked on his run and utilised what could work for them – staying in a time zone and climate close to Japan’s.
Staying away from competition and letting the field underestimate him might not have been the stated plan, but it certainly worked.
The rest of the world on Saturday night was asking who this quick white boy from Australia was in lane one. He is Rohan Browning. He is a star.
Browning is still young in running terms, and in one sense Tokyo is a building block for Paris in 2024, when he will be 26. But he is also smart and knows that the best-laid plans are fraught. You seize your moment when it presents.
Hale remains an excellent sprinter and was just short of qualifying for these Games. Remember, he is a year younger than Browning and his time- and his best times – may be still to come.
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