Riley Day reveals the pain behind her tilt at Tokyo

Queensland sprint star Riley Day has revealed the burning motivation driving her push for glory at the Tokyo Olympics.

From the bush beyond Beaudesert, southwest of Brisbane, to the bright lights of the world’s biggest stage...

Sprint star Riley Day has vowed she won’t be content to simply make up the numbers in Tokyo as she chases a dream Olympic final in the 200m sprint.

Speaking exclusively to The Courier-Mail on her family’s tranquil farm west of the Gold Coast, Day revealed her ambition to stand among the fastest women on the planet and how the pain of the 2018 Commonwealth Games was driving her to new heights.

As a raw 18-year-old Day missed the final by just 0.01sec on the Gold Coast and said she had channelled that anguish in the pursuit of her Tokyo dream.

“Missing out on the final at the Comm Games was very disappointing but it also made me not want to experience that ever again,” said Day, who will tune up for the Olympics with an Oceania Athletics invitational meet at Runaway Bay on the Gold Coast today.

Riley Day will carry Australia’s hopes at the Tokyo Games. Picture: Adam Head

“I’m not just going to Tokyo to be a number – I want to be there to be a competitor.

“I won’t be one of those athletes that is happy to just go there and get through the heats.”

Day, whose personal best sits at 22.77sec, hopes to slip under 22.5sec in Tokyo, which would put her in the mix for the final.

With such little international competition in the past 18 months to use a yardstick, Day looks back to the Rio Olympic final, where the slowest qualifier ran just under 22.5sec.

That time would have clinched seventh in the final itself and would place Day in rarefied air among Australian track athletes.

No Aussie has made an Olympic 200m final since Melinda Gainsford-Taylor and Cathy Freeman featured in Sydney more than 20 years ago, while Ella Nelson missed the final by 0.01sec in Rio.

Riley Day at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games in 2018

Last year’s Olympic postponement affected athletes in different ways, but Day, now 21, has treated the delay as a positive as she hits the peak of her still-young career.

“I hated Covid there for a little bit, I still do,” she admitted.

“I was obviously disappointed at first, but then I was like, ‘you know, s--- happens’, and I’m going to take it and use that 12 months to get the little things right that I hadn’t been able to do before.

“It definitely gave my body an extra year to mature and being a year later, performance-wise would be a lot better for me.”

Day is philosophical about the prospect of racing at the Olympics without her family in the stands, or any spectators at all for that matter.

“I’m used to running with no crowds,” she said.

“I feel it would affect the Japanese a bit more.

“If you imagine back running in the Comm Games with the home crowd, that just takes you up to that extra level.

“It’s still an Olympics, crowd or no crowd, there’s still going to be millions of people watching on TV.

I feel like it won’t be that different.

“The Olympics is still the pinnacle of our sport.”

Riley Day as a budding star in Little Athletics

Regardless of what happens, Day said she has never been better prepared for the biggest moment of her young career.

“(Once I qualified for the Olympics) a light switched on and I have literally gone to new heights and new places that I never thought I would be,” she said.

“I’m not leaving any stone unturned.”

Day will run in the 200m and the 4x100m relay today ahead of another race in Townsville next weekend before heading overseas.