Jack Hale breaks 23-year-old under- 18 Australian 100 metres record

VIDEO: Watch 16-year-old Jack Hale break Australia’s under 18 record, a mark that has stood for 23 years, at a meet in Hobart.

SATIS athletics carnival , at the Hobart Domain athletics track, picture of St virgils college 100 m record breaker Jack Hale

HE’S Australia’s new fastest boy.

Tasmanian Jack Hale, 16, set a lightning 10.44 sec over 100 metres to surpass the national under-18 record set 23 years ago.

The unassuming schoolboy, whose key event is long jump, shaved 0.02 sec from the Australian under-18 record and credits a regime of box jump training for his new-found speed.

“I’ve started doing them about three months ago and I’ve been doing them three times a week, weighted box jumps, I think they have really helped me,” Hale told the ABC following his Wednesday sprint.

Jack Hale is congratulated by school mates after breaking the national under 18 record.

Already linked to Athletics Australia’s under-age training program for long jump, Hale has been hopeful of a place at the 2015 World Youth Championships but is now also tipped to qualify for the 100m.

Junior high performance manager Sara Mulkearns said Hale’s record was a surprise.

“We didn’t think he was that quick,” she told AAP.

“With that performance, based on recent (international) results, he’d be looking at a fourth place at world juniors.” United States sprinter Trayvon Bromell, aged 18, set a new junior 100m world record time of 9.97 sec in June.

Originally published as Jack Hale breaks 23-year-old under- 18 Australian 100 metres record