Rohan Browning has narrowly missed out the Olympic final of the 100m dash, after coming agonisingly close to qualifying in the semi final race.
The mullet-sporting, 23-year-old who has shot to fame at the Tokyo Olympics ran a was a couple of metres off the pace after a shaky start, crushing his chance to become the first Australian to make the Olympic final of the 100m sprint since the Melbourne Games in 1956.
Ranked 32nd in the world going into Tokyo, Browning made history on Saturday night when he ran the fastest time by an Australian at an Olympics, leaving one of the gold medal favourites, Jamaica's Yohan Blake, in his wake.
He clocked a personal-best 10.01 seconds and moved to second on the Australian all-time list and the equal fifth fastest time going into the semi-finals.
On Sunday night, the law student from Sydney hopes to become the first Australian athlete since 1956 to qualify for the event.
Browning's rise to the top shouldn't be a surprise to those who have followed his career closely in recent years.
Rohan Browning shocked the world by winning his 100m heat on Saturday night
Born in Sydney, Browning grew up playing soccer and rugby before turning his attention to athletics at age 13.
Browning first burst onto the international scene in 2017, two years after graduating from Sydney's Trinity Grammar school, when he was part of Australia's men's 4x100m relay at the world titles.
The speedster competed at the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast a year later, where he narrowly missed the 100m final by an agonising 0.001 seconds and went viral afterwards with a heartfelt tweet.
'I think I am Australia's most pitied man right now... but I don't want to be. Fractions of a sec are what separate people in this sport and that's what makes it beautiful,' Browning posted at the time.
In 2019, he became the first Australian in more than a decade to compete in the men's 100m at the world championships.
He is trained by Andrew Murphy, a former Australian triple jumper who competed at three Olympics.
Rohan Browning (pictured with mum Liz) studies law at the University of Sydney
Earlier this year, Browning became the second Australian man to run the 100m in under 10 seconds when he ran a wind-assisted time of 9.96 seconds at the Illawarra Track Challenge.
It was the fourth fastest in Australian history at the time, with the top three finishes recorded by former indigenous sprinter Patrick Johnson.
'I think my eldest son just became the first non-Indigenous Australian to run 100m in under 10 secs. Can't quite believe it,' Browning's proud mum Liz Jackson tweeted following her son's race.
But the tweet caused an uproar online.
'This is a really racist tweet,' one person replied.
'Please correct this and apologise for putting this out there and please, please learn from your mistake and why this is so harmful.'
Ms Jackson defended her wording of the tweet, saying it was far from being racist.
'Not racist at all. In fact quite the opposite. This tweet was an acknowledgement of just how good our Indigenous athletes are,' she responded.
Ms Jackson later used the wording again after becoming aware other non-Indigenous Australians had run the 100 metres in under 10 seconds.
'OK so not the first non-Indigenous (Australian), he joins a club of three. But still pretty damn fast. Thanks for all the lovely wishes... I'll pass them all onto him,' she wrote.
Rohan Browning (left) celebrated his spot on the Olympic team earlier this year. He's pictured with Australian Bendere Oboya
Former Australian athlete Tamsyn Lewis Manou also replied to the tweet, uploading a screenshot of Johnson's Wikipedia page where it mentioned he was the first man of non-African descent to break the 10 second barrier.
'There is a fascination with time barriers in the 100m. Always has been,' Lewis Manou wrote.
'It was big news (Johnson) breaking the 10 second barrier and being first non-African to do so.
Browning booked his spot on the Olympic team in April when he won the national title in a blistering 10.05 seconds and celebrated post-race with his first beer in months.
'I haven't been pushed this year like I would have liked and COVID has made it really tough to go overseas and find competition,' Browning told Nine newspapers recently.
His coach added: 'In terms of what has happened so far I think it has paid off. The training has been exceptional. He is in PB shape. I could not ask for any more other than more competition but that came at a cost having to traipse over to Europe
