Jacob Despard prepares to battle for a place on Australian relay team

The list of Tasmanian athletes making the trip to Paris has grown after two of the state’s athletic stars earned selection. See which event they were selected for.

Tasmanian sprinter Jacob Despard before the heart-breaking heat where Australia's 4x100 relay team crashed out at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games.

Tasmania sprinter Jacob Despard will make his Olympic debut in Paris after his efforts to help Australia qualify a 4x100m relay team were rewarded with selection on Monday.

The 27-year-old will be among the candidates to race in the relay after he was one runners to qualify Australia at the World Relays in the Bahamas in May.

All four sprinters who competed in that event - Despard, Sebastian Sultana, Calab Law and Josh Azzopardi - have all been named.

However sprint star Rohan Browning is the wildcard after a late improvement in his world ranking from 57th to 54th ensured he squeezed into the 56 automatic qualification spots.

Browning will race in the individual 100m and is a contender to feature in the relay.

Despard admitted after he won bronze at this year’s national championships in April he initially vowed he wouldn’t compete at a major meet solely as a relay runner again after his Commonwealth Games heartbreak in 2022.

Anchor runner Browning fell to deny Australia a spot in the final, but Despard has since softened that view.

“We’ve got a good group of boys at the moment in the (relay) team. I think we can do something special, we’re already knocking of the door of the Australian record,” he said after the national championships.

Meanwhile, middle distance runner Stewart McSweyn was selected for his second Olympics after being named as a 1500m and 5000m competitor.

At the Tokyo Olympics in 2020, McSweyn produced a stunning run to finish seventh in the 1500m final.