INTERVIEW WITH JACOB DESPARD
Jacob Despard and his teammates said they were delighted to set a new Australian record in their heat of the men's 4x100 metres relay at the Paris Olympics.
A time of 38.12 saw the quartet finish sixth which wasn’t enough to qualify for Saturday’s final but did break new ground for Australian sprinting.
It broke the 29-year-old national record of 38.17 set at the 1995 world championship in Gothenburg and equalled at the 2012 Olympics in London.
Also an Oceania record, the time would have won the second heat. The Australians were 0.05 seconds behind the defending champions from Italy who snatched the last non-automatic spot.
Despard said the time was some consolation for the team.
“The record's been a long time coming, if I'm honest,” he said.
“We've definitely had the potential and the speed for a number of years and a lot of people have said ‘You've got the raw speed, why haven't you broken it?’
“Today we went out there and showed Australia what we can do and what we're proud to do. An Australian record holder sounds pretty nice to me.”
Making his Olympic debut, Hobart’s 27-year-old Stawell Gift champion added: “This has been a four-year journey for some of us. We have lots of relay training during the year and know that we can do really well in relays.
“To be honest I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s not one of the fastest times to miss the Olympic final so hats off to all the boys involved. I think we’re going to walk away with our heads held high and very proud of what we did out there.”
Despard was clocked at 9.25 seconds for the second leg, taking the baton from Lachlan Kennedy (10.42), who was a late replacement for national champion Seb Sultana, and handing to Calab Law (9.31) before Josh Azzopardi (9.14) ran the anchor.
The team ran from lane nine, just outside USA who won in 37.47. South Africa and Great Britain were the other automatic qualifiers from the heat.
Despard’s teammates echoed his pride in the new Australian benchmark.
“We’ve been chatting about it for a few months now to get the national record and the boys were flying,” Azzopardi said.
Law added: “It’s not every day you get to run an Australian record and to do it at the Olympics is crazy and I think we should all be really proud of ourselves.”
Despard, Law and Azzopardi combined with Sultana to secure Olympic qualification on the final night of the World Athletics Relay Championships in The Bahamas earlier this year.
Despard started athletics aged 13 to improve his fast bowling in cricket, eventually joined OVA Southern Saints and developed into a sprinter, winning the prized Stawell Gift in 2018.
He made his national team debut at the 2022 Commonwealth Games - alongside fellow Hobartian Jack Hale - and set his individual 100m personal best of 10.15 earlier this year.