As the world’s best athletes lounged on beaches and bathed in Olympic success, rising sprinter Torrie Lewis found herself exhausted on a Texas track. Linking up with triple Olympic champion Gabby Thomas, the teenager has been pushed to new limits ahead of her final race of the season – Athlos NYC.
Despite enjoying a breakthrough year, most would be surprised that Lewis is still squeezing the lemon in late September. The results and smiles have flowed from start to finish as the 19-year-old has become one of the sport’s most marketable young names, but her success is not to be mistaken for ease.
“It’s definitely been hard and a long year, but it's helped having exciting competitions like the Olympics, World Juniors and also this Athlos meet to look forward and keep my motivation up,” Lewis says.
What started with an Australian 100m record in January snowballed into a Diamond League victory in Xiamen and the World Relay Championships in The Bahamas, before Lewis would cement herself as an Olympic semi-finalist in Paris and World Under 20 Championships silver medallist in Lima over 200m.
But when she took a deep breath and the alternative to a flight home or holiday was a three-week training camp with Olympic 200m champion Gabby Thomas, the Australian owed it to herself to take up the opportunity.
“On the track she has a tenacity that she brings to training sessions that I would also like to adopt and even though she is an Olympic champion, she's also very humble in herself. This is absolutely the highest level I have ever trained at being with an Olympic gold medallist,” Lewis says.
“Off the track she has a very balanced life and I think that's how she's kept her love of track because she also has a very active life outside of athletics too.”
Shifting from training partners to rivals over 200m at the inaugural Athlos NYC which features 36 women across six races, Lewis will garner more invaluable experience while soaking up a performance from Megan Thee Stallion and a prize purse of over $100,000 per race.
Her last appearance on the track was marked by a silver medal at the World Under 20 Championships in Lima, Peru when clocking a career-best 22.88 over 200m – seven months after becoming Australia’s fastest woman in history in 11.10-seconds in Canberra.
“I had known there was going to be three weeks between World Juniors and Athlos in New York, and the nearest place to base myself would be in America,” Lewis says.
“I was trying to think of what training groups would still be training at this point in the season, and luckily Tonja Bailey's group has three athletes who are running at the Athlos meet. I asked Gabby Thomas, Tamara Clark and Lynna Irby-Jackson, and luckily they said yes,” Lewis says.
A global star of the sport, Thomas’ credentials are endless. Securing the Olympic 200m title in Paris along with gold in the 4x100m and 4x400m, there a few athletes greater to shadow for the emerging Australian than the fourth fastest woman in history over 200m at 21.60-seconds.
Touted as an event where “Coachella meets track”, Lewis is keeping a tight lid on her walk-out song for the final race of her junior career and last opportunity to take down Raelene Boyle's Under 20 Australian record of 22.74-seconds, as the world’s fastest women blaze a trail through New York.
“The fact that it's in New York and that after this race I can be fully done; I can properly enjoy my time in a city like this. What I am most proud of this year is probably just achieving everything I set out to do,” Lewis says.
Athlos NYC will commence at 9:30am AEST on Friday 27 September, with more information available HERE.
By Lachlan Moorhouse, Athletics Australia
Posted 26/09/2024
