In the land of lochs, the announcer at Scotstoun Stadium couldn’t figure out the first half of his name, but Lachlan Kennedy’s performance on a sodden night in Glasgow ensured Australia will never forget it.
The weather on Tuesday night couldn’t have been much more Scottish.
It was teeming basically all night, to the point the women’s high jump final was halted for 45 minutes and the women’s hammer throw probably should have been.
There were only two brief windows when the rain turned from a downpour to a drizzle, and it just so happened to be the moments “Lacklan” Kennedy was welcomed to the newly laid blue track.
The support crew was working overtime to make things vaguely manageable. (ABC News: Che Chorley)
It sounds like the sort of apocryphal tale told about Don Bradman in an era before the footage existed to prove your grandad was lying to you.
But it really happened.
To be clear, it wasn’t dry, but no wetter than the night in March when he beat rising superstar Gout Gout in the 200m at the Maurie Plant Meet.
That established him once again as not just a fast runner, but a man capable of performing under the most intense pressure. A man plying his trade against a boy still figuring his out.
And Kennedy did it again on the biggest stage, winning Australia’s first men’s 100 metres medal at the Commonwealth Games with silver behind Cameroon’s Emmanuel Eseme on the second night of an athletics program that has been backed to deliver so much for Australia.
After not running a heat, Lachie Kennedy came straight out and made a statement. (ABC News: Che Chorley)
“It’s all about rising to the occasion. I’m a big believer in you’ve got to bring your best when it matters most,” Kennedy said.
“That’s what we’ve been training for all season. We’ve all been planning for this competition here and my coach has clearly outdone himself.”
It seems extreme to say he obliterated the national record of Patrick Johnson by taking it from 9.93 down to 9.85, but 0.08 of a second means something different to folks like Kennedy than it does us mere mortals.
In the 58 years since Jim Hines broke the 10-second barrier in the 100 metres, only 232 more have people dipped into single digits.
The margins are so fine in the jewel in the athletics crown that there have been 1,550 legal runs in 0.42 of a second between 10 flat and Usain Bolt’s world record of 9.58.
Most are from the United States, Jamaica and spread across Africa, and just two from Australia, with Kennedy the only one since 2003.
Kennedy stands alone in some respects, but is proud to be part of a pack pushing each other towards greatness.
Gout’s rise trained a spotlight on the team, whose performances with that attention have proved it warranted.
“Aussie track is clearly in the best spot it’s ever been, our team is so strong … We’re in a real golden age,” Kennedy said.
That was clearly evident as Kennedy — after running alongside compatriot Eddie Nketia, who finished sixth in the final after laying down a PB of 10.03 in the semis — was still talking to the media in the mixed zone when Torrie Lewis won bronze in the women’s final.
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“The Aussies are on fire,” Kennedy said as he cheered Lewis on to the team’s third of six medals on the night.
Lewis also set a new national record, but rather than breaking a record that had stood for 23 years, hers had barely stood for 23 hours.
Lewis’s 10.99 in the women’s final came after her 11 flat in the semi, which lowered her own record of 11.04 from a week prior.
All in an event she wasn’t even sure she wanted to compete in.
Torrie Lewis followed Lachie Kennedy into the history books. (ABC News: Che Chorley)
Lewis is one of the controversial automatic qualifiers into the semis of her pet 200m event, where she’ll be hoping for more silver (or better) ware before the relays kick off in the ultimate representation of what this team can do.
“I have a day off tomorrow, luckily with the bye, then Thursday see how I pull up for the semifinal and hopefully I can do something special there as well,” she said.
Lewis and Kennedy were the headlines due to Australia’s historic lack of truly exceptional flat sprint talent since the days of Raelene Boyle.
We’ve jumped at a few false dawns and sometimes athletes have been unable to live up to those expectations, while field sensations have been consistently brilliant.
They were again on Tuesday night: Eleanor Patterson and Nicola Olyslagers went 1-2 to continue their impossibly consistent excellence in the high jump, and 22-year-old Lara Roberts broke through for her first major international medal.
Patterson said it was “phenomenal to see the runners joining the jumpers and throwers in contention for medals.
“I was out there and you get to have a lay of the land and you understand what’s going on,” she said.
“I definitely took in my stride that there was a lot of Aussies there and seeing how well everyone was doing.
“Athletics in Australia, it’s going off. I want the whole of Australia to know that we’re taking it to the world, we’re representing Australia very well and we’re not bad, we’re pretty bloody good.”
Back on the track Ky Robinson kicked off the stunning hour and a half with victory in the 10,000m
Australian athletics has had a number of these special nights of late, so much so that it risks becoming expected.
Australians have become so used to success in the pool that we have become somewhat blasé about the brilliance of our aquatic elite, but for now, on relatively dry land in Scotstoun there really is no other word for it.
That was special.
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