JACK’S BACK

Hale’s record sprint

HE’S the fastest man in Australia — Tasmanian rocket Jake Hale proved that by breaking a 55- year- old Australia record for the 100 yards sprint at Geelong on Saturday night.

It has the 22- year- old from Hobart pumped with confidence that he can finally break the 10- second barrier for 100m on his way to claiming his place in the Australian Olympic track and field team for the July Tokyo Olympics.

Australia’s fastest sprinter in 2020, Hale, who has been based in Melbourne since 2017, ran 9.43 seconds to win the David Baxter 100- yard ( 91.44m) championship to break a record that had stood since Victorian Olympic sprinter Gary Eddy set the mark in 1966.

The ace sprinter said it was nice to have a “9” alongside his list of achievements.

“It’s great to get that Australian record,” Hale said.

“Running the equivalent of a 10.2 for 100m at this time of year, I’m pumped about that.”

Next target is the 10- second barrier ahead of booking his ticket to Tokyo.

“I’m in the best shape I have been in at this point of my career,” Hale said.

“Running 10.2 at this time of year is great. It’s really only 0.08 off my PB.

“It’s going to be a long season so the smart thing for me now is to do all the right races and treat it like an Olympic Games year and not just like a normal Australian year.”

Hale’s next 100m is likely to be at the ACT track championships in Canberra.

“It has been postponed for a few weeks so that gives me time to get some more qualify training in before that,” he said.

In the meantime, it’s back to training at Essendon.