Torrie Lewis makes 200m semi final at 2024 Paris Olympic Games

She was run out of the 200m in the semi finals but Australia’s new track queen Torrie Lewis has proven she is ready to take on LA and Brisbane. Her story is just beginning.

All smiles... Australia's Torrie Lewis after making the 200m semi finals. Picture: AFP

The beaming smile, the skip and clap told the story of what it meant to Torrie Lewis.

Australia’s fastest female sprinter is now an Olympic semi-finalist and at the age of 19 this looms as a watershed moment in a career where the sky’s the limit.

She may have eventually fallen short of a place in the 200m final but Lewis showed she is made of the right stuff given the scenario in the repechage heat was simple, win and you’re in the semis.

Earlier this year the Queenslander gave an indication there was something special about her when on her Diamond League debut in China she defeated reigning 100m champion Sha’Carri Richardson over 200m from the outside lane.

It was a performance which got the attention of the world.

Torrie Lewis didn’t make it out of the semis but she showed she has a big future. Picture: Michael Klein

So with the spotlight beaming on her in front of 80,000 people inside Stade de France, Lewis delivered another eye-raising performance.

Running from lane two, she hit the bend hard and then gradually wore down her five rivals to claim victory in 23.08sec. The time was slower than the personal best 22.89sec she ran in the heat but the meaning was just as much.

Lewis still couldn’t wipe the smile off her face afterwards and revealed she’d treated the repechage like a professional handicap race back home in Australia.

“I was pretty annoyed that I got lane two but then I thought about it like a pro race down in Victoria or Tassie, I used to do heaps of them when I was younger as I was always out the back on the inside,” Lewis said.

“So I was like, just treat it like a pro race, try to get to them as quickly as possible and then stay in front. I was actually pretty chilled when I thought of it like that.”

Torrie Lewis (right) leads the repechage. Picture: Getty Images

Her plan in the semi-final was to “go like a bat out of hell”. The result is irrelevant there, it’s the experience and what these coming of age moments mean for Los Angeles 2028 and Brisbane 2032.

A taste of the big time and seeing what is required to be the best in the world is a great driving force for someone of Lewis’ undoubted talent.

Ironically the repechage system which handed Lewis her passage through has been the focus of great debate throughout the opening three days of the track and field program.

It was introduced for these Games after American broadcaster NBC pushed for more bang for their buck when they handed over gazillions for the rights to the Olympics.

They wanted more track and field so the second chance saloon which is the repechage – the French word meaning “to save” or “to rescue” – was created. The system replaces the old ‘fastest losers’ set-up and is being used at these Games in races from 200m up to 1500m including hurdles.

Torrie Lewis could go big in 2028 and 2032. Picture: Getty Images

The benefits are everyone gets two runs at an Olympics and that has saved the bacon of several Aussies who will be richer for the experience.

Lewis is at the top of that list. Another young star on the rise, Abbey Caldwell, used the repechage to stay alive in the 800m and they ran brilliantly in the semi-final.

And in the 400m hurdles Alanah Yukich got through when she dead-heated for second in the repechage heat which forced officials to go with an extra lane in the semi-finals to accommodate the unusual result.

On the flip side there was a “jump the shark moment’ in the men’s 400m repechage heat where there were only three runners because the others on the start list decided to save themselves for the relay.

We’re not sure if NBC covered that one but what the repechage has done for Torrie Lewis now, and the impact down the future, means it gets a big tick from Australia.