Toea Wisil has run an Olympic Qualifying time in the 100m just two days before the final qualifying deadline of 11 July. Running in her 23rd 100m race of the year, the multiple PNG national record holder clocked a time of 11.29 seconds in Suva, Fiji on Saturday 9 July which is 0.03 seconds under the qualifying time of 11.32secs.
Wisil becomes the second female track athlete from PNG in recent years to post an Olympic qualifying performance after Mae Koime achieved this feat in Brisbane in March 2007. Toea demonstrated her ability to run under 11.30 seconds in the London 2012 Olympic Games when she clocked 11.27 seconds in round one after leading Allyson Felix of the USA for the first half of the race. That performance could not be recognised as a record as the following wind was 2.2mps.
Toea is pictured here with husband and wife coaching and management team Tony and Alison Fairweather. Coach Tony said after the race in Lae last month where Toea clocked 11.36 seconds that he was confident she could run the qualifying time. It was just a matter of Toea putting it all together on the day and having ideal running conditions, which is what happened in Suva with a perfect following wind of 1.9mps. Athletics PNG extends its thanks to Oceania Athletic Association for their part in facilitating the race for Toea.
