Tiaan Whelpton Photo: PHOTOSPORT
Young Canterbury sprinter Tiaan Whelpton is about to run the toughest race of his fledgling career, and he's hoping that he'll compete in many more this year.
Whelpton is one of 20 New Zealand athletes taking part in the Brisbane Classic athletics meeting this weekend with the aim of making the World Championships later this year.
The 22 year old has become New Zealand's premier sprinter this summer now that rival Eddie Osei-Nketia is preparing to take on American Football at the University of Hawaii.
Osei-Nketia is in the 100m field in Brisbane in what is likely to be his last race before he changes careers.
Rio 2016 Olympic silver medalist Yoshihide Kiryu of Japan, who is a sub-10 second sprinter, will also lineup along with Australian stars Rohan Browning and Jake Doran.
"I probably should feel nervous but I feel comfortable that this is where I'm suppose to be," he said on arriving in Brisbane .
Whelpton missed last week's Sir Graeme Douglas meeting in Auckland after catching Covid.
"I'm probably not a hundred percent yet, but I thought I'd travel over and give it a go and chase some good points."
Eddie Osei--Nketia and Tiaan Whelpton Photo: PHOTOSPORT
He's looking forward to catching up with Osei-Nketia again, who has had the better of him in recent clashes.
The pair finished second and third at the Continental meeting in Melbourne last month.
"It'll be sad to see him go, but it'll be good to hit the track with him one more time and if we can do what we did in Melbourne and take two of the podium spots it would be fantastic."
While he's young, Whelpton does have big ambitions for 2023, including getting to the World Championships in Budapest in August.
He has a personal best time of 10.18 seconds, but would need to get under 10 seconds to qualify on time.
His most realistic option is to qualify on ranking.
He's currently ranked 21st in the world, but with most of the northern hemisphere athletes yet to compete, he'll need to be in the top 48 by the end of July.
After Australia, Whelpton will return home for a block of training before heading to Europe for the first time.
"For me it will just be getting that experience under the belt and I'm excited to get over there.
"It was always the goal and what I wanted to chase... the aim is to get to the World Champs... I'm targetting the top tier events and will try to get as many points as possible to move up the rankings."
Whelpton says another aim for the summer was to run a PB, and while he hasn't done that yet he's confident it will happen this year.
"This is the first time I'll be in a field with a sub-10 runner (Yoshihide Kiryu) and it'll be awesome to see how I track against him and also showing them what I can do.
"I'm looking at the times I'm running and where I want to be and what I'm capable of and this feels natural."
Whelpton is also hoping a good 2023 will set him on his way towards next year's Paris Olympics.
The last New Zealander to compete in the 100m at the Olympics was Chris Donaldson and Gus Nketia in Atlanta in 1996.
