Matching Sally
MEET the Queensland schoolgirl keeping pace with Olympic champion Sally Pearson and already leaving Australia’s top sprinters in her dust.
Torrie Lewis, 15, is one of the hottest prospects in Australian athletics with pundits already talking about her for the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.
A student at St Peter’s Lutheran College in Brisbane’s western suburbs, Lewis turned heads in September at the Queensland Athletics Track and Field meet with a
win in the 100m sprint over Riley Day – the 20-year-old Beaudesert sprinter who was one of the stars of the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast.
Lewis is the world’s best under-16 100m and 200m runner, world No.3 in the under-18 group and Australia’s No.1 under-20 sprinter.
But it is perhaps her more recent feat, equalling the national under-18 100m record set by Olympic gold medal winner and Gold Coast resident Pearson that has really put Lewis on the map.
At the Queensland All Schools championships last
month, Lewis equalled Pearson’s under-18 record with a sizzling personal best 100m time of 11.57 seconds.
The effort qualified her for the 2021 world junior championships.
And while they might share results, the similarities between Lewis and Pearson don’t end there.
Torrie’s coach Gerrard Keating said: “I have known Sally since she was 12 and I remember when she was 14 and I said to her, ‘don’t have a goal of going to the Olympics, have the goal of winning the Olympic gold’ . Sally loved to compete and so does Torrie.
“The fact is there is only one Sally but I know where Torrie can get to.”
Keating said his young star had an impressive off-track work ethic and fierce desire mirroring that of Pearson.
“And what Torrie has done in the last seven months, she is the best (junior) I have ever seen in my 30-odd years in this sport,” he said.
Originally from Newcastle, Lewis moved to Brisbane at the start of the year with her mother Wendy.
When COVID-19 closed in, coach Keating was stranded in Newcastle but he wrote a program for Lewis which
she has religiously followed while training on her own.
“To do it pretty much by herself, setting it up all, warming up and doing everything correctly, it shows the drive that she has,’’ Keating said.
Despite all the hard work and dedication, Lewis said running sub 11.70 had exceeded her expectations.
“I was aiming to run high 11.60s and 23.80s (200m), so it was really good that I ran faster than I thought I would,” said Lewis, who was quick to praise Keating.
“I always trust that he believes in me which gives me more confidence.”