Kiwi sprinter Zoe Hobbs admits she's still coming to grips with the significance of her first legal sub-11 seconds 100 metres performance at Sydney.
Seven days after dipping under the barrier with an excessive tailwind at the NZ national championships, Hobbs, 25, realised her dream in near-still conditions against her Australian rivals, clocking 10.97s to win by two-and-a-half metres.
"Sorry, I'm still processing all this," she told Newshub. "What does it mean? I don't know.
"I don't have many races left in the domestic season, but hopefully I can build on this performance moving forward.
"It gives me a bit more confidence for the rest of the year and the Olympics next year. I'm pretty sure that time would have qualified me sixth into the Tokyo final, so when you put it in that context, it's pretty exciting."
Hobbs' non-selection for Tokyo is still a sore point among the Kiwi athletics community, but two years later, her inclusion is virtually a foregone conclusion. She has since lowered the national record by 0.35 seconds, reached the 60m semi-finals of world indoor championships, 100m semis at the 2022 world athletics championships and the Birmingham Commonwealth Games final, finishing sixth.
Hobbs' latest time is the fastest in the world so far this year, with northern hemisphere athletes still winterlocked.
Her next outing will come at the Sir Graham Douglas International on Thursday, with several Aussie rivals crossing the Tasman to pursue world athletics ranking points.
