Morgan Mitchell hoping for dry run to break 51-second barrier

It’s been more than a dozen years since an Australian woman broke 51 seconds for 400m.

Mitchell Morgan competes in the 400m during the 2017 Australian Athletics Championships at Sydney Olympic Park Sports Centre.

It’s been more than a dozen years since an Australian woman broke 51 seconds for 400m but Olympic semi-finalist Morgan Mitchell thinks she can end that drought if it stops raining for long enough in Sydney over the weekend.

Mitchell began her national ­titles campaign with a comfortable victory in her 400m heat last night but she is hunting for much more as the weekend unfolds.

The 22-year-old Victorian has been in fine form all season and wants to top it off by improving the personal best time of 51.25sec she set in Birmingham on the way to the Olympics last year.

“A PB over the two (200m) or four (400m) would be amazing,’’ Mitchell said.

“We train too hard almost not to PB.”

The 51-second barrier has tantalised her for most of the past year and after an exemplary domestic season she knows she’s ready, if the weather conditions allow.

“If I could do it in Australia, that would mean a lot, because not a lot of people can pull out big PBs here, so that’s the goal,’’ she said.

“I reckon that should have happened last year. Without being arrogant, I was in too good a shape but I had minor errors which made me miss out. That’s the goal for this year. If you are under 51 you are world-class and then the next step is 49.’’

If she makes the first step tomorrow, she will join an elite group of six other Australian women, including two Olympic champions (Cathy Freeman, Debbie Flintoff-King) and a world champion (Jana Pittman). Only Freeman has broken 50sec.

National men’s 400m champion Steve Solomon made a rushed trip home from Stanford University, where he did his medical entrance exam this week, to defend his title.

Solomon, who reached the Olympic 400m final as a teenager in 2012 but was injured for the next three years, didn’t need to break out of a trot to win his heat (48.18sec) and progress to the semi-finals.

After coming back from major hamstring surgery, he narrowly missed qualifying for last year’s Rio Olympics but has had a smooth run lately and it shows.

“You have to get off the plane and move the legs, and conditions weren’t great so I didn’t run particularly fast but it felt pretty smooth,’’ Solomon said.

Luke Mathews was similarly dominant in the opening heat of the men’s 800m, cruising through two laps (1:49.37) as he begins his title defence in what is arguably the most competitive men’s event on the program.

The other leading contenders, Josh Ralph (1:49.38), Rio Olympian Peter Bol (1:50.24) and national record-holder Alex Rowe (1:49.99) also progressed comfortably.

Mathews, 22, has had a slow start to the domestic summer, in contrast to his breakthrough season last year, but he’s hoping to make a mark this weekend.

“I am getting by on my 2016 accolades now, so I need to do something in 2017,’’ he said.

The most competitive women’s event is the 1500m which has three Olympic semi-­finalists in Linden Hall, Zoe Buckman and Jenny Blundell and national champion Heidi See. All progressed to the final without incident last night.