Brunswick’s Thomas Cross breaks five-year-old 800m record

Brunswick’s Thomas Cross has continued to smash records after breaking an 800m record which stood for five years. Thomas broke the U16 800m at Perth Athletics Stadium on Friday, November 26 with a time of 1:53.77 — 0.99 seconds faster than the previous time of 1:54.76. The 15-year-old said he got off to a slow start in the race and could not believe he broke the record. “I had no idea how fast I was going,” he said. “The first lap I went out slow and was actually off the time by loads, there was no possible way I was going to get the record, but somehow I ended up beating it by lots.” “I did not expect anywhere close to that (time, and I was) completely shocked.” Thomas has had a stellar year, breaking a 29-year-old record at the WA Little Athletics State Championships in March, as well as the two-minute barrier for the first time and a number of personal bests. The rising star said it had taken years of work to get to this stage, including making the journey to Perth twice a week and hard training in the off season. “It’s been thousands of hours over a few years,” he said. “It takes years of building strength and building on each season, so it took me three solid years to get to that two minutes, and then another year of building on it to get the State record.” Cross said his biggest goal heading into the future was the World Athletics Junior U20 Championships, which is held every two years. “It’s one of my biggest goals, and if I can get to that, that will be one of my biggest goals done,” he said. “I have until 19 to get into that team, so hopefully in the next few years I can.”