Riley set for world stage
RILEY Day knows she has a date with the devil.
It will be there, sitting on her young shoulders as she steps up to the blocks in the 200m sprint in front of more than 35,000 home-town fans in her first Commonwealth Games.
The pressure – or, as she calls it, the devil – will be huge. Next week’s Games will be the biggest moment in the teenager’s career.
But Day, who turned 18 yesterday, is confident she can shrug it off.
“There’s always that little devil sitting on your shoulder (pressure), but you’ve just got to kick him away and think of the positives and say ‘you’ve made the team, that’s an achievement in itself and you’ve got to go out there and do the best you can’,” Day, who will also compete in the 4x100m relay, said. “I want to go out there and give it my best shot and if that’s a final or a PB (personal best), then that’s a bonus. I believe in myself that I can do it.”
Day is already among the fastest Queensland women in history and boasts the eighthfastest time in the world this year for the 200m.
With three faster times set by Americans, it leaves Day right in the mix to make the final.
Jamaican Elaine Thompson, the Olympic champion, will be hard to toss, particularly after ditching the 100m to focus on the 200, but Day knows anything can happen under the spotlight of the big stage.
The country girl who still lives on a farm outside Beaudesert an hour west of the Gold Coast, was just 16 when she was plucked from obscurity to race against Usain Bolt in Melbourne last year.
The Games will be a massive occasion for a kid dubbed Daylight who still trains on a grass track in a paddock on the outskirts of Beaudesert.