Canberra sprinter Lauren Wells has all but booked her ticket to London for the athletics world championships after cruising to a 400 metre hurdles win at the Canberra Grand Prix.
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Wells will wrap up a place at the world championships if she wins the national title at the Australian Athletics Championships in three weeks time.
Olympian Wells usually keeps her emotions in check after a race, but after running 55.97 to finish well clear of the field they were on show with a fist pump as she crossed the finish line.
"I'm just so relieved to be honest," Wells said.
"My coach and I thought the time was possible tonight, we just had to bring the race together, and to do it in front of my home crowd is great. It's a real support, thanks for coming out.
"I've been working on my flat speed, and have run a 200m [personal best] and my fastest time over 400m in five years so it's good to see that translate to the hurdles. It's really exciting.
"The pressure is off now. The next challenge is to wrap up my 10th national title in the 400m hurdles, consolidate my selection for London and then build. I feel like I've got so much more to give and that's a promising thing."
Canberra's sixteen-year-old Keely Small stole the show in the 800m, setting a new under 18 national record of 2:01:46.
Fellow Canberran Melissa Breen (11.47) had no such luck, losing out to Queensland-based Papua New Guinean sprinter Toea Wisil (11.37) in the women's 100 metres final.
Breen shot out to an early lead but couldn't maintain the pace as Wisil mowed her down to move one step closer to the national titles, where she will aim to sew up a world championship qualifying time.
"Mel's a strong runner," Wisil said.
"It's good to race against her, to run a qualifying time. She's a very strong person to run with and try to get a good time on board."
A huge Japanese media contingent was on hand for the men's 100m final with sprinter Ryota Yamagata - a member of Japan's silver medal-winning 4x100m relay team at the Rio Olympics - tipped to break 10 seconds.
He ran 10.08 in a comfortable win, but was "disappointed" he couldn't achieve what he planned to.
"t was disappointing, however I found something in these two races and I can be best at the next one," Yamagata said.
Olympic semi-finalist Morgan Mitchell ran her fastest ever 400m time in Australia (51.66) to qualify for the world championships.
