Big day in life of Riley

WITH legs shaking from nerves, boom Queensland sprinter Riley Day has negotiated her first individual senior race for Australia but a bigger moment awaits tonight.

In her heat yesterday at Carrara Stadium, the teen sensation chased outstanding Bahamas sprinter Shaunae Miller-Uibo into the semifinals of the Commonwealth Games women’s 200m.

Day, 18, who in February became the youngest female to win the Australian sprint double, trains mostly on a grass oval at Beaudesert, just 50km away from Carrara, where she has been coached for all nine years she has been in athletics by kindergarten assistant Donna Thomas.

Day, who was deep in thought after the heat, said she aimed to make tomorrow night’s final and expects she will have to break her 22.93 sec personal best time in tonight’s semi-final to do so.

Day and Thomas have learned on the job on a path which has taken them to a world championships and the Commonwealth Games, way ahead of their expectations.

Thomas’s twins, Ben and Olivia, went to Little Athletics as eight-year-olds and Day came along with them to Saturday morning meets a year later, contesting her first national age titles in under-10s.

“I’d played lots of representative netball with Riley’s mum Nicky well before children came on the scene,’’ Thomas said.

“I agreed to coach her for a little while, until the time came that someone else should. Coaching was all a learning curve for me. I went through Little Athletics coaching and then later on Athletics Australia courses. At times, I feel out of my depth with the leaps and bounds she’s making.

“It is a large responsibility to coach someone with that ability as your first athlete. But we are getting there together.’’

While Day has trained on synthetic tracks like her Games rivals in recent weeks, she moves mostly from grass oval to grass oval in Beaudesert, depending on which one is least affected by heavy rain.

In her heat, Day ran a comfortable first 100m and held it together to place third in 23.71 sec behind Miller-Uibo (22.75).

“I didn’t run the full way. When I saw where I was, I eased up to conserve as much energy as I could. I have to run the semi-final like a final to try to make into the final,’’ she said.

“My legs were trembling. You don’t know what the crowd is like until you get out there. It was really good, though, one of the best experiences I’ve ever had.’’

All three Australian women made tonight’s 200m semifinals, with Day slower than NSW teammates Maddie Coates (23.51) and Larissa Pasternatsky (23.55).

Brisbane’s Alex Hartmann said the crowd support for him was “insane’’ after he qualified from the men’s 200m heats with a convincing second place in 20.66 sec, just .19 sec outside his personal best.

WHEN I SAW WHERE WAS, I EASED UP TO CONSERVE AS MUCH ENERGY AS I COULD RILEY DAY I