FACTOIDS
Full Name: Tamsyn Lewis
Nickname: "Whatty"
Birthday: July 20, 1978
Height: 5’8”
Hometown: Melbourne, Australia
Sports: Track & Field
PROFILE
For 23 years, the Australian 800 metres record has stood at 1:59.0 minutes.
Tamsyn Lewis is on a personal quest to rewrite the record and almost every time she runs the event, she inches a little closer.
At the Canberra Grand Prix event in January she recorded a time of 1:59.21 minutes - a little less than a quarter of a second outside Charlene Rendina’s record, which was set before Lewis was even born.
Lewis says she wants the record. "I want to break that record, it’s been there for a bit too long and I’m in good shape," she says.
As part of the Peter Fortune camp in Melbourne, Lewis trains with 400m world champion Cathy Freeman who she sees as an inspiration.
"Just having her in the training squad is great. She’s such a motivated person and it rubs off when you’re around positive people and she’s a sensational person to be around," Lewis says.
"I love training with her, she brings out the best in everybody in our group."
If pedigree has any impact, Lewis should be successful. Both her parents were Australian representatives.
Lewis first made her reputation as a 400m runner. She became the youngest member of the Commonwealth Games team which travelled to Victoria in 1994 after finishing sixth in the 400m final at the World Junior Championships in the same year.
It wasn’t until 1998 that she took the step up to the 800m. That year she finished sixth in the final of the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur.
She has shown her versatility by remaining an important part of the 4x400m relay set-up, winning a gold medal with the rest of the team in KL.
Lewis enjoyed a good start to 1999, setting a new personal best of 2:00.95 minutes in February.
She then made the semi-finals of the 800m at the World Indoor Championships, also in February, and ran the fastest split in the silver medal winning 4x400m relay team.
But by the end of the year her form had dropped off, and she was a first-round casualty at the World Championships in Seville, finishing sixth in her heat in a time around three seconds outside her best.
While that was a disappointing result, Lewis put it behind her at the start of the domestic season with a return to form.
She enjoyed a great three days in the middle of February, setting a personal best over 400m (51.51 seconds) and a near personal best over 800m (2:00.52 minutes) at Grand Prix meets in Brisbane and Sydney.
These performances were all the more meritorious given that Fortune is still working Lewis hard, and will do so throughout the domestic season.
To put her performances in context, although Lewis is threatening the Australian record, she is still almost four seconds outside the fastest time recorded in 1999 - Russian Svetlana Masterkova’s 1:53.87 minutes.
However, Lewis will only just have turned 22 when the Sydney Games begin, and has plenty of time ahead of her to improve.
