Aussie teenager Torrie Lewis shocks world champion with staggering upset victory: ‘Holy s**t’

Australia’s fastest woman, Torrie Lewis, has made another stunning sprint breakthrough in the run-up to the Olympics, beating the world champion in the 100m and taking a stunning victory in the 200m in the opening event of the season at the Diamond League in China.

On a night in Xiamen, as Armand Duplantis set another world pole vault record of 6.24 metres, the Australian star led the undercard with her brilliant half-round win over two American stars.

After her brilliant home campaign, when she became the Australian 100m record holder with her run of 11.10 seconds in Canberra in January, 19-year-old Lewis made an individual Diamond League debut to remember on Saturday.

She achieved a completely unexpected victory from lane nine, beating her idol, 100m world champion Sha’Carri Richardson, and Tamara Clark after a fine start.

‘Not at all!’ beamed the Newcastle youngster when asked after the photo finish whether she believed she could win before the race.

Lewis took an unexpected victory from lane nine, beating her idol, 100m world champion Sha’Carri Richardson

Clocking 22.96 and ahead of Richardson by just 0.03 seconds, while Clark clocked 23:01, British-born Lewis celebrated the second-fastest 200 meters of her career.

It also moved her closer to Raelene Boyle’s 56-year-old Australian under-20 record and to the Olympic qualifying standard of 22.57.

“It was so surreal to beat Sha’Carri. I didn’t even notice I beat them until I saw the replay and I thought, and I was like, ‘Holy sh***… Holy crap,'” Lewis said.

‘My goal was to last as long as possible. I was on lane nine, so I knew they would all be 50 or 60 meters in front of me, but I just wanted to perform as well as I could.

“I’m coming here straight from the national championships knowing that this was my opponents’ season opener, so I knew I had an advantage coming in, but I just wasn’t quite sure because I’d never played with those athletes before had played.’

There were more Australian performances to enjoy, with Georgia Griffith and Sarah Billings becoming the fourth and fifth Australian women respectively to clock times under four minutes in the 1500 metres, with Linden Hall joining them.

Griffith clocked 3 minutes 59.04 seconds to finish sixth, followed by teammate Billings who recorded a personal best of seven seconds (3:59.59) in ninth place, while Hall in tenth recorded a time of 4:00 had .71. All stayed within the Olympic qualifying standard of 4:02.50.

But it was a disappointing return to international action for Peter Bol, who could only finish 11th out of 12 finishers as he clocked a time of 1:47.02 in the 800m in his first overseas race since last year’s world championships in Budapest .

Lewis revealed that she only realized she had won after watching a replay afterwards

Further afield, Canadian Marco Arop set the fastest two-lap time in the world this year with his victory of 1:43.61.

It was also a tough night for Olympic finalist Stewie McSweyn, who just missed the qualifying standard of 13:05.00 for Paris, finishing 10th in 13:05.18.

Joel Baden cleared 2.24 meters in the high jump, but a miss at 2.20 meters meant he missed the podium places in an event won by American Shelby McEwan.

Another Diamond League debutant Ellie Beer finished fifth in the 400 meters, clocking 52.36 behind Dominican winner Marileidy Paulino, while Australian record holder Kathryn Mitchell, seeking a fourth Olympic appearance, finished sixth in the javelin. with a throw of 55.57 meters behind home winner Qianqian Dai.