After Tokyo, Browning has his eyes on Paris 2024. “I think I’d enjoy the sport of it.”īefore then, Australia’s third-fastest sprinter of all-time wants to keep making history. “But when it comes to crunch-time I am always going to put the sport first – I have a deadline that is looming from a physical perspective, in my early 30s, whereas I can be a lawyer for the rest of my life.”īrowning jokes that “the better I run the longer I can avoid becoming a lawyer”, but he says he is genuinely interested in a legal career post-sport, possibly as a barrister. He is currently studying law at Sydney University and concedes he is approaching his seventh year of a five-year degree. The buck stops with you.”īrowning took to the sport and has been training full-time since he was 16, although he admits finding a balance between athletics and his studies is not always easy. It’s not your coach, your psychologist, your physio – they all play such an important role behind the scenes, and I cannot emphasise more the importance of those people in the results that I’ve had recently – but ultimately you’re the one that gets behind the blocks. I remembered thinking: I just have to run faster. When I missed the Commonwealth Games final by one thousandth of a second – 0.001 – I remember I got interviewed and the journalist said I must be gutted.
“When you play a team sport, sure you might miss a tackle and someone scores, but it’s always the team’s fault, it is never any one individual. “I really had to learn to love the thrill of track and field, which involves taking total ownership of your results,” he says. The pair have worked together ever since, although Browning says switching from team sport to an individual discipline was quite the adjustment. But when Browning moved to Trinity Grammar School aged 12, he gravitated towards sprinting under the wing of coach Andrew Murphy, an ex-Olympic triple jumper. Photograph: Christian Petersen/Getty Imagesīorn in Sydney, Browning grew up around team sports – rugby, baseball, football and cricket. That’s the flipside of that competitive mentality you need to compete at the highest level.”īrowning, Adam Gemili of Great Britain and Nigeria’s Usheoritse Itsekiri at IAAF world championships in 2019. If you come 40th you’ll be disappointed, if you come fourth you’ll be disappointed to miss the podium, if you come second you will have wanted to come first. I am never fully satisfied with a run – the day I think I’ve run the perfect race is the day I should walk away from the sport, because there will be nothing left to give. “It’s a difficult question to answer because performance is always relative. But being young, being still early in my career, getting to the final would show a lot of upside. “What would success look like? I’d like to win – first and foremost.” The gold medal time at the 2016 Olympics was Bolt’s 9.81s, although the Jamaican’s retirement leaves a less pacy field. That remains in the back of my mind – the work isn’t done and I still have a long way to go.”Ĭome Tokyo, Browning will travel with high hopes.
“But it is one thing to get to the starting line by qualifying, and an entirely different challenge to perform well there and do something that you can be proud of and will make the country proud. “Those superlatives are always nice, it’s a good little ego boost,” he says. “It’s been a long build-up to the Olympics, so to have all-but punched my ticket takes a real weight off, to be honest.” Browning will become the first male athlete to represent Australia in the Olympic 100m since Josh Ross in 2004.īut he knows the hard work is just beginning. Having secured the qualifying time, Browning just needs to contest the 100m at the national championships next month to book his ticket to Tokyo. I always keep an eye on the history books you have to want to create your own history.” “I’m trying to be the best athlete I can possibly be. “I’m not trying to be Usain Bolt,” Browning says. In Tokyo, Browning is hoping to secure his first legal sub-10-second run and potentially a place on the podium. In January, he broke the hallowed 10-second barrier with a 9.96s at the Illawarra Track Challenge (albeit the time was wind-assisted). “I’ve certainly felt worse,” Browning says. At the weekend, he ran 10.05s at the Queensland Track Classic to become the third fastest Australian in history. “It just takes one person to change that,” he says. Not for much longer, if Browning has his way.